The initial trial of militants accused of being involved in the 1999 Millennium Plot (see November 30, 1999) ends with convictions for most of the defendants, as 22 of the 28 accused are found guilty, with six acquittals and six death sentences. [New York Times, 1/15/2001; Associated Press, 12/16/2002] At the start of the trial, only 15 of the accused are present, the rest being tried in absentia. One is Algerian and another is Iraqi, although most are Jordanians of Palestinian origin. [Independent, 4/21/2000] The defendants include: Abu Qatada, a senior militant cleric based in London, is sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison. He has already been convicted in another case in Jordan (see (April 1999)), but years later will not have been extradited from Britain. He is an informer for the British security services (see June 1996-February 1997). [Associated Press, 4/15/2005] Raed Hijazi, a radical with US connections and an FBI informer (see Early 1997-Late 1998), is one of those sentenced to death. [New York Times, 1/15/2001] However, after a number of appeals, his sentence will be reduced to 20 years in prison in 2004. [Amnesty International, 10/12/2004] In addition to Hijazi and Abu Qatada, the plot involved another two informers, Luai Sakra and Khalil Deek (see November 30, 1999), but these two are not put on trial. The involvement of four known informants could help explain why the plot was broken up. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is also tried for the plot, although he is not present at the trial (see 2001). [Washington Post, 10/3/2004] Alleged militants Khader Abu Hoshar and Usama Husni are also tried and initially convicted. Legal proceedings associated with some of the accused will grind on for years, with the case going back and forth with an appeal court, which twice finds that some of the convictions are covered by an amnesty. [Jordan Times, 2/16/2005]

According to the 2008 charge sheet at his military tribunal, 9/11 facilitator Ali Abdul Aziz Ali speaks on the telephone to 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi, who is living in San Diego at this time. The call or calls are apparently made at the direction of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and are about a wire transfer from Ali to Alhazmi made in mid-April (see April 16-18, 2000). The source of the claim that the calls are made contained in the charge sheet is not specified, so it is unclear whether it is only based on statements made by detainees under interrogation, which may be unreliable (see June 16, 2004), or whether it is corroborated by other evidence, such as phone company records. [US Department of Defense, 2/11/2008 ] At least some calls between Alhazmi and his partner, hijacker Khalid Almihdhar, and an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen are being monitored by the NSA at this point (see Spring-Summer 2000). However, it is unclear whether the call or calls to Ali are picked up by the NSA, or a joint CIA-NSA program to support “black ops” in progress at this time (see After July 11, 1997).

9/11 hijacker Marwan Alshehhi is a soldier in the United Arab Emirates army, and is studying in Germany on a scholarship paid for by the army. However, an FBI timeline will later note that on April 1, 2000, Alshehhi is “removed from the armed forces for the crime of desertion.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 59 ] It is not known what the source of this information is, or why it is considered that he had deserted. Curiously, the UAE army will continue to pay for Alshehhi’s studies until the end of 2000 (see Spring 1996-December 23, 2000).

United Nations police raid a house in Pristina, Kosovo, rented by the Saudi Joint Relief Committee (SJRC). The house was rented by Wael Hamza Julaidan, one of the founders of al-Qaeda, and is discovered to be an al-Qaeda safe house. Shortly after the raid, the BBC reports that the US sent UN police a secret document asking them to monitor those connected to the house. It states that Julaidan is an associate of Osama bin Laden, and helped him “move money and men to and from the Balkans.” The SJRC is an umbrella body for several other Saudi charities and is partly financed by the Saudi government. [BBC, 4/3/2000] In a 1999 interview broadcast on the Al Jazeera television network, bin Laden referred to the origins of al-Qaeda and said, “We were all in one boat, as is known to you, including our brother, Wael Julaidan.” [Kohlmann, 2004] However, despite this openly shown interest in Julaidan, the US will not freeze his assets until late 2002 (see September 6, 2002). Julaidan has just been made director general of the Rabita Trust, a charity with many prominent Pakistanis on its board of directors, including Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (see Mid-September-October 12, 2001).

The Washington Post writes, “With little fanfare, [President Clinton] has begun to articulate a new national security doctrine in which terrorists and other ‘enemies of the nation-state’ are coming to occupy the position once filled by a monolithic communist superpower.” In his January 2000 State of the Union address, President Clinton predicts that terrorists and organized criminals will pose “the major security threat” to the US in coming decades. However, some claim that a “preoccupation with bin Laden has caused errors in judgment.” National Security Adviser Sandy Berger counters that the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks on US soil is “a reality, not a perception.… We would be irresponsible if we did not take this seriously.” Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke predicts that the US’s new enemies “will come after our weakness, our Achilles heel, which is largely here in the United States” (see April 2, 2000). [Washington Post, 4/2/2000]

Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke warns of the danger posed by Osama bin Laden and of the risk of a terrorist attack within the United States, and argues for an aggressive anti-terrorism strategy. His views are reported by the Washington Post, which calls him “one of the least known but most controversial members of [President] Clinton’s national security team,” who has “played a key role both in defining the new post-Cold War security threats to the United States and coming up with a response.” The Post says the central idea behind Clarke’s thinking is that “a new breed of global terrorist—embodied by bin Laden—has developed the ruthlessness and resources to carry its war to American soil.” These terrorists, Clarke says, “will come after our weakness, our Achilles heel, which is largely here in the United States.” Clarke “compares the current threat of global terrorism with the situation faced by Western democracies in the period leading up to World War II, when appeasement carried the day.” He is critical of those who are skeptical about the danger of a chemical or biological terrorist attack, saying: “The notion that this is an analytical problem and one can quantify the threat is naive.… We don’t know how many bio labs there are out there, how many tons of chemical agents. Frankly, it will only take one.” Clarke wants aggressive action to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans. He says: “We should have a very low barrier in terms of acting when there is a threat of weapons of mass destruction being used against American citizens. We should not have a barrier of evidence that can be used in a court of law.” Referring to bin Laden, he adds: “It’s not enough to be in a cat-and-mouse game, warning about his plots. If we keep that up, we will someday fail. We need to seriously think about doing more. Our goal should be to so erode his network of organizations that they no longer pose a serious threat.” [Washington Post, 4/2/2000]

ISI Director and “leading Taliban supporter” Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed visits Washington. He meets officials at the CIA and the White House. In a message meant for both Pakistan and the Taliban, US officials tell him that al-Qaeda has killed Americans and “people who support those people will be treated as our enemies.” [Washington Post, 12/19/2001; Coll, 2004, pp. 508-510] US Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering bluntly tells Mahmood, “You are in bed with those who threaten us.” [Rashid, 2008, pp. 409] The US threatens to support the Northern Alliance, who are still engaged in a civil war with the Taliban. A short time later, Mahmood goes to Afghanistan and delivers this message to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. However, no actual US action, military or otherwise, is taken against either the Taliban or Pakistan. Author Steve Coll will later note that these US threats were just bluffs since the Clinton administration was not seriously considering a change of policy. [Washington Post, 12/19/2001; Coll, 2004, pp. 508-510]

National Air College in San Diego. [Source: Fox News] (click image to enlarge)Future 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi takes his first flying lesson in the US. In contrast to a lesson elsewhere a short time later, where the instructor describes him as “dumb” (see May 5 and 10, 2000), he does quite well. The lesson is at the National Air College in San Diego, in a four-seater plane with instructor Arnaud Petit. During the hour-long flight, Alhazmi proves to be surprisingly adept, and can almost take off and land on his own. Alhazmi is courteous and acts like a businessman. He wants a license within a month and does not seem fazed when Petit says it will cost $4,000. However, his English is not good enough to start flight training. Petit tells him to improve it and come back in a month, but he never returns. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 271-2; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 517-8] Alhazmi will say that his flight training continues in the winter (see (December 2000-January 2001)).

Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, is arrested at Dubai airport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While much less known than his brother, Mohammed quietly served an important role as Ayman’s deputy in Islamic Jihad, and as the group’s military commander (see 1993). He apparently disagreed with the increasing unification between Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, and quit in 1998 over that issue. [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 108] He is arrested in the UAE and then flown to Egypt as a part of the CIA’s rendition program (see Summer 1995). A senior former CIA officer will later confirm US involvement in the operation. [Grey, 2007, pp. 246, 299] Mohammed had been sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt the year before. [New Yorker, 9/9/2002] But his execution is not carried out, and he is said to reveal what he knows about Islamic Jihad. In 2007 it will be reported that his sentence is likely to be lessened in return for agreeing to renounce violence. [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 108; Associated Press, 4/20/2007] Note: there is a dispute about when he was arrested. Some sources indicate it was in the spring of 1999. [Grey, 2007, pp. 246; Associated Press, 4/20/2007] Others indicate it was a year later. [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 108; New Yorker, 9/9/2002]

According to the 9/11 Commission, al-Qaeda financial facilitator Ali Abdul Aziz Ali uses the name “Mr. Ali” to make the first wire transfer from abroad to the 9/11 hijackers in the US. Five thousand dollars is wired from the Wall Street Exchange Center in Dubai to an account of an acquaintance of hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar in San Diego. The Exchange Center makes a copy of Ali’s work ID and notes his cell phone number and work address, which is helpful to the FBI after 9/11. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 220; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 134 ] Ali, who is a nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, is also accused of wiring hijacker Marwan Alshehhi $115,000 (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000). Although in a 2007 US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay he will admit sending this amount to Alshehhi, he will deny sending $5,000 to Alhazmi, saying that his personal information was distributed to “thousands of people from different parts of the world,” so it could have been used by somebody else. Some reports indicate that Saeed Sheikh may also have wired the hijackers some money this year (see Summer 2000). [US Department of Defense, 4/12/2007, pp. 17 ] Although the hijackers have at least one US bank account (see February 4, 2000), they tell the administrator of their local mosque, Adel Rafeea, that they do not have one and ask him to allow the money to be paid into his account. It is unclear why they do this. The administrator will come forward after 9/11 and say that Alhazmi and Almihdhar initially described themselves as Saudi government clerks and needed his help to find an English school. After declining Alhazmi’s request for a loan, he permits his account to be used, but then distances himself from them because he is suspicious of the transfer: it came from the United Arab Emirates, not Saudi Arabia, where Alhazmi said it would come from, and the sender is only identified as “Ali.” This causes him to worry that Almihdhar might be an intelligence agent of the Saudi government. [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 517; McDermott, 2005, pp. 191]

USA Today reports that “Israeli crime groups… dominate distribution” of the drug Ecstasy. [USA Today, 4/19/2000] The DEA also states that most of the Ecstasy sold in the US is “controlled by organized crime figures in Western Europe, Russia, and Israel.” [United Press International, 10/25/2001] According to DEA documents, the Israeli “art student spy ring”
“has been linked to several ongoing DEA [Ecstasy] investigations in Florida, California, Texas, and New York now being closely coordinated by DEA headquarters.” [Insight, 3/11/2002]

Reda Hassaine, an informer for the British security service MI5, learns that a top London-based operative known as Abu Walid is to travel to Afghanistan. He also hears rumors that Abu Walid is to meet Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders and will not return to London after the meeting. The mission is so important that Abu Qatada, a leading imam who reportedly sits on al-Qaeda’s fatwa committee (see June 1996-1997) and also informs for MI5 (see June 1996-February 1997), is to hold a special prayer session to bless Abu Walid before he leaves. Hassaine attends the prayer session, but the militants realize he is an informant and attempt to murder him (see April 21, 2000). [O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 148] French intelligence had previously considered assassinating Abu Walid in London, but he will be reported to be in Afghanistan after the US invasion and will die in Chechnya in 2004 (see 1997-1998).

At the instructions of the British intelligence service MI5, informer Reda Hassaine goes to a meeting at the Four Feathers community center. The meeting is being held so that Abu Qatada, an al-Qaeda spiritual leader and also MI5 informer (see June 1996-February 1997), can bless an emissary named Abu Walid that London-based Islamists are sending to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. MI5 knows about the meeting thanks to information passed on by Hassaine (see Before April 21, 2000). Hassaine arrives early, but finds Abu Qatada is already there, and the group is saying prayers for someone preparing to lay down their life for God, presumably Abu Walid. As the prayers end, Hassaine realizes some of the other men are looking at him strangely, and that they must have discovered he is a mole. The men attack him as he leaves, but he manages to get out of the building and they chase him down the street. He evades them and calls his MI5 handler, who tells him, “Go home and whatever you do don’t involve the police.” He then realizes that there were men at the meeting from numerous Islamist groupings throughout London, and that if he goes back to any place where extremists gather, he might not get away again. This ends his career as an informer. He occasionally runs into people who must know of the incident, and they make threatening gestures towards him. [O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 148-149]

After deciding to end his career as an informant against radical Islamists in London (see April 21, 2000), Reda Hassaine reflects bitterly on his experience of the British security services, MI5 and the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch: “These guys I was risking my life for—they hadn’t arrested anybody, they didn’t do a proper job. All the work I had done, all the risks I took didn’t seem to amount to anything. All this killing was taking place abroad, but the British didn’t give a sh*t that the killers were here in London. As long as nothing happened in Britain, then everything was alright. Abu Hamza [al-Masri, another MI5 informer (see Early 1997)] was left to do whatever he liked, to brainwash, to recruit, and send people off to the training camps. I was telling the British this all the time. ‘This group is going to Afghanistan,’ I would say. ‘They’re leaving on Friday, they have tickets to fly to Pakistan.’ And the only reply I got was, ‘There’s nothing we can do about it.’” 'Harmless Clown'? - Hassaine will add: “I wasn’t surprised. When I began to work with MI5 I already knew from the French that they would do nothing, that they weren’t interested in what was happening in London, the threat didn’t register. They told me that they thought Abu Hamza was a ‘harmless clown,’ but I felt obliged to carry on with the work. [Note: a group closely associate with Abu Hamza murdered some British citizens and others in Yemen in 1998 (see December 28-29, 1998).] I had started this thing, I wanted to pursue it. I later learned that Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada were both talking to MI5 and Special Branch too. The British must have thought they had these guys under control, that they were collaborating with them.” 'A Factory for Making Terrorists' - Hassaine will continue: “Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Abu Hamza was busily recruiting hundreds of people, sending them off to Afghanistan, from where they were returning unnoticed and undetected to do whatever they like. Abu Hamza had this great big mosque where these people could hide, pick up a new identity, get money and support, and receive the blessing of the imam for their actions. Seven days a week that place was producing recruits for the jihad. It was a factory for making terrorists.” [O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 150-151]

TIPOFF is a US no-fly list of individuals who should be detained if they attempt to leave or enter the US. There are about 60,000 names on this list by 9/11 (see December 11, 1999). Apparently there had been no prohibition of travel inside the US, but on this day an FAA security directive puts six names on a newly created domestic no-fly list. All six are said to be associates of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, including his uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). On August 28, 2001, six more names will be added to this list. Apparently all 12 names are associated with al-Qaeda or other Islamic extremist groups. 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey will later note the discrepancy of the 60,000-name list with the 12-name list and comment, “seems to me, particularly with what was going on at the time, that some effort would have been made to make—to produce a larger list than [only 12 names].” [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004] The FAA’s chief of security in 2001, Cathal Flynn, will later say that he was “unaware of the TIPOFF list” until after the September 11 attacks. 9/11 Commissioner Slade Gorton will say that this admission is “stunning, just unbeleivable,” and an “example of absolute incompetence” at the FAA. Other FAA officials will say they are aware of the larger list, but do not make much use of it. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 115] On the day of 9/11, two of the 9/11 hijackers will be on the 60,000-name TIPOFF list but not the 12-name domestic list, so airport security does not know to stop them from boarding the planes they hijack that day (see August 23, 2001).

The FAA issues an advisory to airports and air carriers, setting forth its views on the hijacking threat. The advisory states that while conditions for hijackings of airliners had been less favorable in the 1980s and 1990s, “We believe that the situation has changed. We assess that the prospect for terrorist hijacking has increased and that US airliners could be targeted in an attempt to obtain the release of indicted or convicted terrorists imprisoned in the United States.” However, “the terrorist hijacking of a US airliner is more probable outside the United States due to access to safe havens.”
[9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 59 ; New York Times, 9/14/2005]

Johnelle Bryant. [Source: ABC News]9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta reportedly has a very strange meeting with Johnelle Bryant of the US Department of Agriculture. Incidentally, this meeting takes place one month before the official story claims he arrived in the US for the first time. According to Bryant, in the meeting Atta does all of the following: He initially refuses to speak with one who is “but a female.” He asks her for a loan of $650,000 to buy and modify a crop-dusting plane. He mentions that he wants to “build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting.” He uses his real name even as she takes notes, and makes sure she spells it correctly. He says he has just arrived from Afghanistan. He tells about his travel plans to Spain and Germany. He expresses an interest in visiting New York. He asks her about security at the WTC and other US landmarks. He discusses al-Qaeda and its need for American membership. He tells her bin Laden “would someday be known as the world’s greatest leader.” He asks to buy the aerial photograph of Washington hanging on her Florida office wall, throwing increasingly large “wads of cash” at her when she refuses to sell it. [ABC News, 6/6/2002] After Bryant points out one of the buildings in the Washington photograph as her former place of employment, he asks her, “How would you like it if somebody flew an airplane into your friends’ building?” He asks her, “What would prevent [me] from going behind [your] desk and cutting [your] throat and making off with the millions of dollars” in the safe behind her. He asks, “How would America like it if another country destroyed [Washington] and some of the monuments in it like the cities in [my] country had been destroyed?” He gets “very agitated” when he isn’t given the money in cash on the spot. Atta later tries to get the loan again from the same woman, this time “slightly disguised” by wearing glasses. Three other terrorists also attempt to get the same loan from Bryant, but all of them fail. Bryant turns them down because they do not meet the loan requirements, and fails to notify anyone about these strange encounters until after 9/11. Government officials not only confirm the account and say that Bryant passed a lie detector test, but also elaborate that the account is consistent with other information they have received from interrogating prisoners. Supposedly, failing to get the loan, the terrorists switched plans from using crop dusters to hijacking aircraft. Other department employees also remember the encounter, again said to take place in April 2000. The 9/11 Commission has failed to mention any aspect of Johnelle Bryant’s account. [Washington Post, 9/25/2001; ABC News, 6/6/2002; London Times, 6/8/2002] Compare Atta’s meeting with FBI Director Mueller’s later testimony about the hijackers: “There were no slip-ups. Discipline never broke down. They gave no hint to those around them what they were about.” [CNN, 9/28/2002]

The State Department issues its annual report describing the US attempt to combat terrorism. For the first time, it focuses on South Asia. The New York Times notes, “The report reserves its harshest criticism for Afghanistan” and “is also severely critical of Pakistan.” However, neither country is placed on the official list of countries sponsoring terrorism, which has remained unchanged since 1993. [New York Times, 4/30/2000]

Mahmoud Es Sayed is arrested in Syria with other militants on weapons smuggling charges, according to Italian authorities. The Italians will learn this later based on wiretaps of Es Sayed, a close associate of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. While in prison, Es Sayed is visited by Muftafa Tlass, the Syrian defense minister, and Es Sayed tells him that the weapons are meant to fight Jews. Tlass, a virulent anti-Semite who even claimed in a book that Jews kill non-Jews to use their blood to make pastries, arranges for the release of the whole group, and puts them in touch with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. [Vidino, 2006, pp. 222]

A secret CIA report details al-Qaeda’s use of the honey trade to generate income and secretly move weapons, drugs, and operatives around the world. The CIA had been gathering information and monitoring some honey stores for almost two years before the study. Bin Laden is believed to control a number of retail honey shops in various countries, especially in Sudan, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaida and Khalil Deek, an American citizen, are said to be particularly tied to the honey trade. One US official will later say, “The smell and consistency of the honey makes it easy to hide weapons and drugs in the shipments. Inspectors don’t want to inspect that product. It’s too messy.” But although a number of companies dealing in honey are tied to al-Qaeda (and sometimes to Islamic Jihad), the US will not make any move to freeze the assets of these companies until after 9/11. [New York Times, 10/11/2001] Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson will later claim Deek was “running an underground railroad in the Middle East for terrorists, shuttling them to different countries,” which would fit with his alleged role in the honey network. [LA Weekly, 9/15/2005]

The inside cover of the training manual found in Manchester, depicting a knife plunging through the Earth. [Source: FBI]British authorities raid the Manchester home of Anas al-Liby. Remarkably, al-Liby was a top al-Qaeda leader who nonetheless had been allowed to live in Britain (see Late 1995-May 2000); some speculate his treatment was connected to a joint al-Qaeda-British plot to assassinate Libyan leader Colonel Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi in 1996 (see 1996). [Observer, 9/22/2001] The raid may have been conducted as part of an investigation into al-Liby’s role in the 1998 embassy bombings. [Associated Press, 9/21/2001] Al-Liby is arrested and then let go for lack of evidence (see May 2000). But shortly after he is let go, investigators searching through his possessions find “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants,” a 180-page al-Qaeda training manual written in Arabic. FBI agent Ali Soufan, who speaks Arabic, is the first to discover the manual. [Soufan, 2011, pp. 113-114] The manual appears to have been written in the late 1980’s by double agent Ali Mohamed. He wrote the manual, and many others, by cobbling together information from his personal experiences and stolen US training guides (see November 5, 1990). Others have since updated it as different versions spread widely. “The FBI does not know if any of the Sept. 11 hijackers used the manual… However, many of their tactics come straight from Mohamed’s lessons, such as how to blend in as law-abiding citizens in a Western society.” [Chicago Tribune, 12/11/2001] George Andrew, deputy head of anti-terrorism for the FBI’s New York City office, later will claim that after studying the manual, the FBI suspect that al-Qaeda operatives are attempting to infiltrate US society. But the FBI think they are not yet ready to strike. [Associated Press, 9/21/2001] The existence of the manual is made public in a US trial in April 2001. [New York Times, 4/5/2001]

A Justice Department report into the handling of the Wen Ho Lee investigation attacks the “wall” procedures. The “wall” regulates the passage of some information from FBI intelligence investigations to criminal FBI agents and prosecutors, to ensure such information can legitimately be used in court (see Early 1980s). After the procedures were formalized (see July 19, 1995), they were criticized in a 1999 Justice Department report (see July 1999). The Wen Ho Lee report finds that additional requirements imposed by the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) at the Justice Department (see (Late 1995-1997)) that hamper consultations between agents on intelligence investigations and attorneys at the Justice Department’s Criminal Division are actually in contravention of the procedures specified in the original 1995 memo. The report states, “It is clear from interviews… that, in any investigation where [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)] is employed or even remotely hoped for (and FISA coverage is always hoped for), the Criminal Division is considered radioactive by both the FBI and the OIPR.” It also says that the FBI’s deputy director has told agents that contacting prosecutors without the OIPR’s permission is a “career stopper.” Another report, published in July 2001, finds that some improvements have been made in this area, but recommends further steps. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 33-36 ]

According to al-Qaeda military instructor Abu Daoud, Osama bin Laden sends four hundred fighters to Chechnya with explosives and weapons. Western intelligence sources will confirm the movement in August 2000, but they will not be able to say whether the fighters are Arabs or Afghans. Abu Daoud will also tell the Associated Press that hundreds of other fighters went in February 1999 and many returned. [Associated Press, 8/30/2000] Two of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, reportedly fight in Chechnya (see 1993-1999). Several others plan to do so (see 1996-December 2000), and Ahmed Alghamdi and Saeed Alghamdi have documentation suggesting travel to a Russian Republic. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 233]

The front of the Manchester manual, deceptively covered with flowers. [Source: FBI]Al-Qaeda leader Anas al-Liby is arrested in Manchester, England, and then let go. According to Ali Soufan, an FBI agent from 1997 to 2005, the I-49 squad, a mix of FBI agents and US attorneys, uncovers evidence that al-Liby is living in Manchester. FBI agent John O’Neill assembles a team, including Soufan, to go there. Soufan will later say that they are met by local police, and he tells them: “Anas al-Liby is a senior al-Qaeda operative. He’s a computer expert and was part of the team that did surveillance on the embassy in Nairobi [that resulted in the 1998 bombing there (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998)]. This is potentially a big win for us.” Al-Liby is caught in his residence and taken to a local police station. However, he denies any involvement in terrorism. According to Soufan, al-Liby is smart and careful, and no incriminating documents or computer files can be quickly found in his residence. O’Neill wants him held until his possessions can be searched more thoroughly, but he is immediately released. Al-Liby evades a team sent to follow him, and skips the country. Not long afterwards, Soufan, who speaks Arabic, discovers a terrorist training manual written in Arabic in al-Liby’s possessions (see May 2000). In a book he writes that is published in 2011, Soufan curiously will not mention the timing of this arrest, even though timing is given to most other events discussed in the book. But the arrest is placed between events that occur in late 1999 and early 2000. [Soufan, 2011, pp. 113-114] In April 2001, the New York Times will first report on the manual, and will mention that it was discovered in a raid in Manchester in May 2000. [New York Times, 4/5/2001] Shortly after 9/11, it will be revealed that the raid was of al-Liby’s residence. [Associated Press, 9/21/2001; Observer, 9/22/2001] In 2002, it will be reported that al-Liby was not at home during the raid, and then escaped the country. Furthermore, al-Liby has been living openly in Britain since 1995, apparently as part of a political deal after he had taken part in a plot with the British intelligence agency MI6 to assassinate Libyan leader Colonel Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi in 1996 (see Late 1995-May 2000 and 1996). [Observer, 11/10/2002] The embarrassing fact that al-Liby is actually arrested and then released will not be revealed until September 2011, in Soufan’s book. [Soufan, 2011, pp. 113-114] The US will later post a $25 million reward for al-Liby, and his death or arrest will never be confirmed. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2002]

Historian Ernest May. [Source: Belfer Center]An eminent historian finds serious flaws in a historical treatise about former President John F. Kennedy. The book, The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis, was written in 1997 by conservative historians Ernest May and Philip D. Zelikow, and purports to be an unprecedentedly accurate representation of the events of 1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis based on transcriptions of recorded meetings, conferences, telephone conversations, and interviews with various participants. [Atlantic Monthly, 5/2000] Zelikow is a former member of George H. W. Bush’s National Security Council and a close adviser to future National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. [US Department of State, 8/5/2005] May is a Harvard professor. Both will participate heavily in the creation of the 2004 report by the 9/11 Commission. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 387-393] Almost three years after the Kennedy book’s publication, Sheldon M. Stern, the historian for the John F. Kennedy Library from 1977 through 1999, pores over it and the May/Zelikow transcripts. In the original edition, May and Zelikow admitted that their final product was not perfect: “The reader has here the best text we can produce, but it is certainly not perfect. We hope that some, perhaps many, will go to the original tapes. If they find an error or make out something we could not, we will enter the corrections in subsequent editions or printings of this volume.” But when Stern checks the book against the tapes, he finds hundreds of errors in the book, some quite significant. Stern concludes that the errors “significantly undermine [the book’s] reliability for historians, teachers, and general readers.” May and Zelikow have corrected a few of the errors in subsequent editions, but have not publicly acknowledged any errors. Stern concludes, “Readers deserve to know that even now The Kennedy Tapes cannot be relied on as an accurate historical document.” [Atlantic Monthly, 5/2000] One error has then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy talking about the planned “invasion” of Russian ships heading to Cuba, when the tapes actually show Kennedy discussing a far less confrontational “examination” of those vessels. May and Zelikow imply that the Kennedy administration was discussing just the kind of confrontation that it was actually trying to avoid. Another error has CIA Director John McCone referring to the need to call on former President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a “facilitator,” where McCone actually said “soldier.” May and Zelikow will be rather dismissive of Stern’s findings, saying that “none of these amendments are very important.” Stern will express shock over their response, and respond, “When the words are wrong, as they are repeatedly, the historical record is wrong.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 42]

Drawings made by FBI sketch artists of Niaz Khan’s al-Qaeda contact in the US (left), and one of the people he trained with in Pakistan (right). [Source: NBC News]British intelligence fails to take advantage of an informant who may help penetrate al-Qaeda in the US, and even possibly the 9/11 plot. Niaz Khan, a British citizen originally from Pakistan, was recruited into an al-Qaeda plot to hijack an airplane in the US and possibly fly it into a building. It is unknown if this was the 9/11 plot or something else, because Khan became scared and never met his al-Qaeda contact in the US, and instead turned himself in to the FBI in April 2000. Khan said he trained in Pakistan for the hijacking. FBI agents checked out Khan’s story and gave him two lie detector tests, and after three weeks, they concluded he was telling the truth. But FBI headquarters was not interested and told the agents to get rid of him (see April 2000). Khan told the FBI he was ready to become an informant. His idea was to create a story to explain his failure to meet with his contact and then work undercover with Islamic radicals. Since the FBI wanted to get rid of him, it made arrangements with MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, so MI5 could handle him as an informant. [Vanity Fair, 11/2004] Khan is a British citizen and he had been recruited into the hijacking plot after he joined a radical Islamist mosque in London, so the hope is he will be able to identify and inform on the people who brought him into the plot. [MSNBC, 6/3/2004] Khan is put on a plane and flown with an FBI agent to London, where he is met by two MI5 agents. But according to an FBI agent who handles Khan, in 2004, Khan will explain that he only has a short meeting with MI5. “And then they let me go. I got on to the tube [subway] back home here to Manor Park. Even after 9/11 happened, I never saw anyone. I got no phone calls, no letters, nothing.” The FBI agent will later say: “I just assumed that when Niaz was turned over the British authorities would have conducted a full investigation. What I would have done is re-inserted him into the community and worked him.… We know that didn’t happen. It’s a real shame.” [Vanity Fair, 11/2004]

Erik Kleinsmith. [Source: C-SPAN]Maj. Eric Kleinsmith, chief of intelligence for the Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) unit, is ordered to destroy data and documents related to a military intelligence program set up to gather information about al-Qaeda. The program, called Able Danger, has identified Mohamed Atta and three other future hijackers as potential threats (see January-February 2000). According to Kleinsmith, by April 2000 it has collected “an immense amount of data for analysis that allowed us to map al-Qaeda as a worldwide threat with a surprisingly significant presence within the United States.”(see January-February 2000) [Fox News, 9/21/2005; New York Times, 9/22/2005] The data is being collected on behalf of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Lambert, the J3 at US Special Operations Command, who is said to be extremely upset when he learns that the data had been destroyed without his knowledge or consent. [US Congress. Senate. Committee on Judiciary, 9/21/2005] Around this time, a separate LIWA effort showing links between prominent US citizens and the Chinese military has been causing controversy, and apparently this data faces destruction as well (see April 2000). The data and documents have to be destroyed in accordance with Army regulations prohibiting the retention of data about US persons for longer than 90 days, unless it falls under one of several restrictive categories. However, during a Senate Judiciary Committee public hearing in September 2005, a Defense Department representative admits that Mohamed Atta was not considered a US person. The representative also acknowledges that regulations would have probably allowed the Able Danger information to be shared with law enforcement agencies before its destruction. Asked why this was not done, he responds, “I can’t tell you.” [CNET News, 9/21/2005] The order to destroy the data and documents is given to Kleinsmith by Army Intelligence and Security Command General Counsel Tony Gentry, who jokingly tells him, “Remember to delete the data—or you’ll go to jail.” [Government Executive, 9/21/2005] The quantity of information destroyed is later described as “2.5 terabytes,” about as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress. [Associated Press, 9/16/2005] Other records associated with the unit are allegedly destroyed in March 2001 and spring 2004 (see Spring 2004). [Associated Press, 9/21/2005; US Congress, 9/21/2005; Fox News, 9/24/2005]

Ellen Glasser. [Source: City of Jacksonville, Florida]Dan Hill, a former Army Ranger, meets with an FBI agent to discuss a plan he has devised to kill Osama bin Laden, for which he will need military assistance, but the agent is skeptical and only promises to refer Hill’s proposal to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. [Stewart, 2002, pp. 230-231] Hill came up with his plan, to go to Afghanistan and kill bin Laden, after the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. However, the man Hill intends to be the mission’s commander wants the assurance of US government support for the operation (see After August 7, 1998). Hill talked to Leo Morris, an agent at the Jacksonville, Florida, FBI office, about his plan, and Morris said he would get back to him after consulting his superiors in Washington. [Stewart, 2002, pp. 203-204]Fighters Now Available to Perform Mission - The plan has progressed while Hill has been waiting for the FBI to get in touch. Hill’s friend Said Nader Zori, who will be participating in the mission, has been to Pakistan and assembled a group of former mujahedeen fighters who are willing to assist. [Stewart, 2002, pp. 230] Nader Zori is himself a former mujahedeen fighter who fought against the Russians in Afghanistan during the 1980s and subsequently emigrated to the US. [Stewart, 2002, pp. 168, 201] Finally, Hill receives a phone call from Ellen Glasser—like Morris an agent at the FBI’s Jacksonville office—who says she is interested in Hill’s plan, and requests a meeting with Hill and Nader Zori. Hill agrees to see her, and in the late spring of 2000 they all meet at his house. Glasser is accompanied by her husband, Donald Glasser, who also works for the FBI at the Jacksonville office. Hill Describes How His Group Will Kill Bin Laden - During the meeting, Hill outlines his plan to Glasser. According to journalist and author James B. Stewart, he tells her: “Their contacts in Afghanistan reported that bin Laden traveled frequently between meetings with Mullah Omar and other high-ranking Taliban officials in the southern city of Kandahar, and Kabul, the capital, near Farmihedda, where bin Laden kept his headquarters. He traveled with only light security: a convoy of three vehicles, bin Laden in the middle with eight armed guards—four in the front and four in the rear. The mountainous terrain provided several ambush sites. Their armed force would attack the convoy, kill the guards, and kill bin Laden.” FBI Wants Bin Laden Captured, Not Killed - Glasser seems startled and says, “Oh, we don’t do things like that.” Hill replies: “I know you don’t. That’s why we’ll do it.” Glasser says the FBI’s idea was that bin Laden would be captured and brought to the US. Hill is astonished. “How would we do that?” he asks. “What would we do with the bodyguards? How would we get him out alive?” Glasser ponders this and then asks how Hill’s group would prove it had killed bin Laden. Hill says it would pack his head and hands in an iced cooler, and bin Laden’s identity could be verified once his remains reached the US. Hill says this is why he needs US military assistance: It would be impossible to get bin Laden’s remains out of Afghanistan over land, so it would be necessary for a C-130 transport plane with a skyhook to fly over his group’s position, hook the cooler, and then reel it up into the plane’s cargo bay. Agent Will Refer Proposal to FBI Headquarters - Glasser seems skeptical about the plan. She also explains, “Money’s tight.” However, Hill says that as long as he knows that, if his plan succeeds, he will get the $15 million reward that has been offered for capturing bin Laden, his group will finance the operation, except for the use of the C-130. Glasser then asks: “How do we know you’re telling the truth? How do we know you have the contacts in Afghanistan?” Hill says he could bring some of his group’s members to the US if Glasser will arrange for tourist visas. Whatever it takes, he will do it. Glasser still looks unconvinced. She tells Hill, “This would all have to be approved,” and says she will refer his proposal to the Counterterrorism Center at FBI headquarters. Before Glasser and her husband leave, Hill points out to them that nuclear weapons have allegedly disappeared from the former Soviet arsenal in Uzbekistan, and he adds that evidence indicates bin Laden is becoming more powerful and sophisticated over time. “Someone has got to take him out,” he says. [Stewart, 2002, pp. 230-232] Glasser will get in touch with Hill about a year later and tell him that his request for government assistance has been rejected (see (Between Spring and Summer 2001)). [Stewart, 2002, pp. 245]

The logo of the New Rule Sets Project, showing the WTC Twin Towers. [Source: US Naval War College]Beginning early in 2000, a unique research partnership takes place between the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island and the Wall Street bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald. The venture is called the New Rule Sets Project and is directed by Thomas Barnett, a senior strategic researcher at the Naval War College. It aims to explore how globalization is altering America’s definitions of national security. In particular, the project leads to three-day-long workshops being held at the Windows on the World Restaurant on the 107th floor of the north World Trade Center tower, where Cantor Fitzgerald has offices. These are in May 2000, October 2000, and June 2001. They bring together “Wall Street heavyweights, senior national security officials, and leading experts from academia and think tanks.” The participants discuss “globalization’s future and the threats that could derail it.” They explore scenarios such as “a terrorist strike on Wall Street, war in the Persian Gulf, and a financial crisis in Asia,” all of which, as Barnett will later point out, “proved amazingly prescient.” [Naval War College, 1/7/2002; Barnett, 2004, pp. 5-6, 46-47 and 197] At the second of these workshops, three mysterious “spies” turn up. They do not participate or interact with anyone, but just observe. Despite having a Top Secret clearance, project director Thomas Barnett is not allowed to know their identities. This particular workshop involves the future of foreign direct investment in Asia, so Barnett later suggests the “spies” are observing it, “because both the Pentagon and the intelligence community had developed a laserlike focus on China as the ‘rising near-peer competitor.’” Due to the Naval War College’s partnership with Cantor Fitzgerald, Barnett visits the World Trade Center two or three dozen times between 1998 and 2001. The last of these visits will be just four days before 9/11, and Barnett is originally scheduled to meet there again two weeks after 9/11. As director of the New Rule Sets Project, he also visits the Pentagon on a regular basis, and will be scheduled to give another briefing there a week after 9/11, in the Navy’s command center facilities: an area of the building that is destroyed when the Pentagon is struck. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 46-47 and 224-225; C-SPAN, 5/30/2004] Barnett will later reflect, “September 11 was crystallizing. We all just went, This is what we were talking about—a peacetime, war-like event that’s so profound it forces us to rethink everything.” [Esquire, 12/2002] Cantor Fitzgerald will suffer the greatest single loss by any company on 9/11, with 658 of its employees dying in the north WTC tower. [Business Week, 9/11/2006] But Barnett’s two “mentors” at the firm that he interacts with—Bud Flanagan and Philip Ginsburg—will both be out of the building at the time, for “accidental reasons,” and therefore survive the attacks. [Bloomberg, 9/13/2001; Barnett, 2004, pp. 199; Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005] Within weeks of 9/11, Barnett will be installed as the assistant for strategic futures in Donald Rumsfeld’s newly created Office of Force Transformation (see October 29, 2001). [Esquire, 12/2002]

Fred Sorbi, and the Cessna 172 used by the hijackers. [Source: San Diego Channel 10]9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar arrive at Sorbi’s Flying Club, a small school in San Diego, and announce that they want to learn to fly Boeing airliners. Alhazmi had previously had a lesson at another nearby flying school (see April 4, 2000). [Washington Post, 9/30/2001] They are there with someone named “Hani”—possibly 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour—but only the two of them go up in an airplane. The 9/11 Commission will say that Hanjour is outside the US at this time, although some media reports will place him in San Diego (see (Early 2000-November 2000)). [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/28/2001] Instructor Rick Garza says that the dream to fly big jets is the goal of practically every student who comes to the school, but he notices an unusual lack of any basic understanding of aircraft in these two. When he asks Almihdhar to draw the aircraft, Almihdhar draws the wings on backwards. Both speak English poorly, but Almihdhar in particular seems impossible to communicate with. Rather than following the instructions he was given, he would vaguely reply, “Very good. Very nice.” [Chicago Tribune, 9/30/2001] The two offer extra money to Garza if he will teach them to fly multi-engine Boeing planes, but Garza declines. [Washington Post, 9/30/2001] “I told them they had to learn a lot of other things first… It was like Dumb and Dumber. I mean, they were clueless. It was clear to me they weren’t going to make it as pilots.” [Observer, 10/7/2001Sources:Rick Garza]

Abdussattar Shaikh.
[Source: courtesy Daniel Hopsicker]While future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar live in the house of an FBI informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, the asset continues to have contact with his FBI handler. The handler, Steven Butler, later claims that during the summer, Shaikh mentions the names “Nawaf” and “Khalid” in passing and says that they are renting rooms from him. [Newsweek, 9/9/2002; US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 51 ; Associated Press, 7/25/2003; 9/11 Commission, 4/23/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 220] In early media reports after 9/11, the two will be said to have moved in around September 2000, but the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry will imply that Shaikh lied about this, and they moved in much earlier. Alhazmi stays until December (see December 12, 2000-March 2001); Almihdhar appears to be mostly out of the US after June (see June 10, 2000). [San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/16/2001; Wall Street Journal, 9/17/2001; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/28/2001; US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 157 ] On one occasion, Shaikh tells Butler on the phone he cannot talk because Khalid is in the room. [Newsweek, 9/9/2002]Shaikh Refuses to Reveal Hijackers' Last Names Despite Suspicious Contacts - Shaikh tells Butler Alhazmi and Almihdhar are good, religious Muslims who are legally in the US to visit and attend school. Butler asks Shaikh for their last names, but Shaikh refuses to provide them. Butler is not told that they are pursuing flight training. Shaikh tells Butler that they are apolitical and have done nothing to arouse suspicion. However, according to the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, he later admits that Alhazmi has “contacts with at least four individuals [he] knew were of interest to the FBI and about whom [he] had previously reported to the FBI.” Three of these four people are being actively investigated at the time the hijackers are there. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 51 ] The report will mention Osama Mustafa as one, and Shaikh will admit that suspected Saudi agent Omar al-Bayoumi was a friend. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 51 ; Los Angeles Times, 7/25/2003] Alhazmi and Shaikh will remain in contact after Alhazmi leaves San Diego in December. Alhazmi will call Shaikh to tell him he intends to take flying lessons in Arizona and that Almihdhar has returned to Yemen. He also will e-mail Shaikh three times; one of the e-mails is signed “Smer,” an apparent attempt to conceal his identity, which Shaikh later says he finds strange. However, Alhazmi will not reply to e-mails Shaikh sends him in February and March of 2001. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 223]Best Chance to Stop the 9/11 Plot? - The FBI will later conclude that Shaikh is not involved in the 9/11 plot, but it has serious doubts about his credibility. After 9/11 he will give inaccurate information and has an “inconclusive” polygraph examination about his foreknowledge of the 9/11 attack. The FBI will believe he had contact with another of the 9/11 hijackers, Hani Hanjour, but claimed not to recognize him. There will be other “significant inconsistencies” in Shaikh’s statements about the hijackers, including when he first met them and his later meetings with them. The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry will conclude that had the asset’s contacts with the hijackers been capitalized upon, it “would have given the San Diego FBI field office perhaps the US intelligence community’s best chance to unravel the September 11 plot.” [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 51 ] The FBI will try to prevent Butler and Shaikh from testifying before the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry in October 2002. Butler will end up testifying (see October 9, 2002), but Shaikh will not (see October 5, 2002). [Washington Post, 10/11/2002]

David Boim. [Source: Public domain]The parents of a US teenager killed in a West Bank attack sue Mohammad Salah, Mousa Abu Marzouk, the Holy Land Foundation, Quranic Literacy Institute, and Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) for $600 million. Stanley and Joyce Boim claim these people and entities were a “a network of front organizations” in the US that funded the attack that killed their 17-year-old David Boim. Their son was gunned down in 1996 while waiting at a bus stop; the attack was blamed on Hamas. Suing suspected terrorists for damages is allowed under a 1992 law, but it had never been done before. The suit claims that the Hamas finance network paid for the vehicle, machine guns, and ammunition used to kill Boim. The case is based on the investigative work of FBI agent Robert Wright and his Vulgar Betrayal investigation. Salah’s house and bank accounts were seized as part of the investigation. [Associated Press, 5/14/2000; Associated Press, 6/6/2002] The Holy Land Foundation is defended in the suit by Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, a Washington law firm said to have influence with the Bush family. For instance, one firm partner is James Langdon, one of the future President Bush’s close Texas friends. [Boston Herald, 12/11/2001] On December 9, 2004, it will be announced that the elder Boims have won the suit. All of the above-mentioned people and entities will be found guilty and ordered to pay the Boims a total of $156 million. There is little chance the Boims will ever see all of that large sum, especially since the organizations will be shut down and have their assets frozen in the years since the suit began. Joyce Boim will say, “I finally have justice for David. He’s up there, smiling down.” [Associated Press, 12/9/2004]

Abdussattar Shaikh’s house in Lemon Grove, near San Diego. [Source: Fox News]While living with FBI informer Abdussatar Shaikh (see May 10-Mid-December 2000), 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi receive strange late night visits, as they did in their previous apartment in San Diego (see February 2000-Early September 2001). [Associated Press, 9/16/2001] The visits are seen by their neighbors. For instance, one neighbor says, “There was always a series of cars driving up to the house late at night. Sometimes they were nice cars. Sometimes they had darkened windows. They’d stay about 10 minutes.” [Time, 9/24/2001] The two hijackers are also reportedly visited by Mohamed Atta and Hani Hanjour at this time (see Mid-May-December 2000).

Osama Siblani. [Source: Publicity photo]Presidential candidate George W. Bush allegedly tells Osama Siblani, publisher of an Arab American newspaper, that if he becomes president he will remove Saddam Hussein from power. “He told me that he was going to take him out,” Siblani says in a radio interview on Democracy Now! almost five years later. Siblani will also recall that Bush “wanted to go to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he considered the regime an imminent and gathering threat against the United States.” As Siblani will later note, as a presidential candidate Bush has no access to classified intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs. [Democracy Now!, 3/11/2005]

Ramzi bin al-Shibh. [Source: FBI]During these months, Hamburg al-Qaeda cell member Ramzi bin al-Shibh tries several times to get a US visa, but all his attempts fail, some possibly due to a link to the USS Cole bombing. In 2000, he tries to a get a visa three times from Germany, and once from Yemen, but all these attempts fail. He may also make a fifth attempt in May 2001, although the 9/11 Commission will not include that in their final report. One of the applications says he will be visiting Agus Budiman, a Hamburg associate, in Washington (see October-November 2000). [Los Angeles Times, 10/24/2001; Australian, 12/24/2002; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 11-15 ; McDermott, 2005, pp. 209] Most accounts claim that bin al-Shibh is refused a visa on economic grounds based on fears that he will overstay his visa and work in the US. One official later suggests it was “only by luck” that he was turned down. [CBS News, 6/6/2002; Washington Post, 7/14/2002] However, Bin al-Shibh is in Yemen during the two months before the bombing of the Cole in that country, and investigators later conclude that he may have been involved in that attack (see October 10-21, 2000 and October 12, 2000). Possibly for this reason other accounts note that, as the London Times will put it, he was “turned down on security grounds.” [London Times, 9/9/2002] Newsweek will later report, “One senior law-enforcement official told Newsweek that bin al-Shibh’s efforts to obtain a US visa were rebuffed because of suspicions that he was tied to the bombing of the USS Cole.” [Los Angeles Times, 10/21/2001; Newsweek, 11/26/2001; BBC, 9/14/2002] In addition, Al Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda will say that according to his US intelligence sources, bin al-Shibh’s visas were “turned down because he was implicated in the USS Cole attack.” [TBS Journal, 10/2002] But no journalist will ever question why this information didn’t lead to the unraveling of the 9/11 plot. Not only is there the obvious visa connection to Ziad Jarrah while he is training at a US flight school, but also during this same time period bin al-Shibh wires money to Marwan Alshehhi, Zacarias Moussaoui, and others, sometimes using his own name. [CBS News, 6/6/2002] It is unclear how the US would know about his ties to the bombing at this time, though it’s possible that the consular official who reviews his fourth attempt in Berlin in October/November 2000 sees that al-Shibh entered Yemen one day before the attack and leaves shortly after it (see October 10-21, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 15 ]

Al-Qaeda Hamburg cell member Mounir El Motassadeq attends an al-Qaeda training camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan. He leaves on May 22, 2000, flying from Hamburg, Germany, to Istanbul, Turkey, and then on to Pakistan. He is there at the same time as another Hamburg cell member, Zakariya Essabar (see January-October 2000). Although they train separately, they are at the same camp and see each other frequently. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 194, 201-202] Hamburg associate Abdelghani Mzoudi also attends the same camp around this time, and El Motassadeq will later testify in court that he meets with him at the camp. (see Summer 2000). El Motassadeq leaves Afghanistan in August 2000. [Los Angeles Times, 8/30/2002] El Motassadeq’s trip to the camp is likely noticed by the Turkish government, because he is on a watch list and he uses a known route to the camps (see May 22, 2000).

Al-Qaeda Hamburg cell member Mounir El Motassadeq leaves Germany for Afghanistan and his travel is immediately reported to the German authorities because he is on a watch list (see March 2000). El Motassadeq flies from Hamburg to Karachi, Pakistan, via Istanbul. At least two of the future 9/11 hijackers have previously traveled this route to Afghanistan (see Late November-Early December 1999). Although Turkish intelligence is aware that radicals from Germany travel to Afghanistan via Turkey, it is unclear whether they pick up the travel by El Motassadeq (see 1996). There are two versions of German intelligence’s reaction to this trip. An early 2003 article in Der Speigel will say that the intelligence report only gives El Motassadeq’s destination as Istanbul, so there are no consequences for him. However, a later article in Stern magazine will say, “Naturally, the officials know that Istanbul is not his real destination but only the usual stopover on his way to Afghanistan, to the camps of Osama bin Laden.” [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 2/3/2003; Stern, 8/13/2003] Indeed, El Motassadeq goes to an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan (see May 22 to August 2000).

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf publicly supports the Taliban. He refers to the Taliban when he says in a press conference: “I just want to say that there is a difference of understanding on who is a terrorist. The perceptions are different in the United States and in Pakistan, in the West and what we understand is terrorism.” The Taliban are closely linked to the Pashtun ethnic group, and he further refers to them as he says: “Afghanistan’s majority ethic Pashtuns have to be on our side. This is our national interest.… The Taliban cannot be alienated by Pakistan. We have a national security interest there.” Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid will later comment that this statement “outraged many Afghans, including all the anti-Taliban factions.” Rashid will add: “Such remarks were to make Musharraf a hated figure for most Afghans, something he could not live down even after 9/11.… Musharraf became known as ‘double-talk Musharraf,’ speaking with one breath about how he would turn Pakistan into a moderate Islamic state, and then just as vehemently with another supporting jihad and militancy.” That same month, Maj. Gen. Ghulam Ahmad Khan, an officer close to Musharraf, says publicly: “We are trying to stop the US from undermining the Taliban regime. They cannot do it without Pakistan’s help, because they have no assets there, but we will not allow it to happen.” [Rashid, 2008, pp. 50-51, 414]

A Joint Vision graphic. [Source: US Defense Department] (click image to enlarge)The US Defense Department publishes its new long-term blueprint for the future, entitled “Joint Vision 2020.” As a Defense Department press release points out, “‘Full-spectrum dominance’ is the key term” in the plan. “Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of US forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations.” [American Forces Press Service, 6/2/2000] The term comes from US Space Command’s “Vision for 2020” in 1998, which spoke of “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment.” Author Peter Dale Scott will later note this represents an important shift from a policy of containing or rolling back the Soviet Union to “full-spectrum dominance of the globe” in order to achieve “global economic integration on American terms, [including] the opening of foreign markets to US investment.” [Scott, 2007, pp. 19-20] Scott will also note that the similarity between this blueprint and a report published by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) think tank several months later “was not coincidental,” since it was built on a 1992 draft report written by some of the same people involved in the PNAC report, such as Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby. The PNAC report calls itself a “blueprint” for the “creation of a ‘global Pax Americana’” (see September 2000). [Scott, 2007, pp. 24]

Kie Fallis, a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) terrorism intelligence analyst, has been gathering evidence of an upcoming al-Qaeda attack or attacks. In 2002, he will describe to the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry a research process similar to what Able Danger is using at the same time: “I began to notice there was a voluminous amount of information, as others have testified, regarding al-Qaeda. Most of it appeared to be unrelated to other pieces of information. It appeared to be almost chat. By using a piece of [commercial software called ‘Analyst’s Notebook’] I was able to put these small snippets of information into, and graphically represent them as well, I was able to, over a course of many months, to determine certain linkages between these items—linkages that would never be apparent without the use of this tool. It would be lost in the weeds. And there were a lot of weeds to look through.” [Washington Times, 8/26/2002; US Congress, 10/8/2002] In his research, he claims to find links between al-Qaeda and Iranian intelligence. By May 2000, he writes a classified report on his conclusion that “terrorists were planning two or three major attacks against the United States. The only gaps were where and when.” Apparently, he envisions at least one of these attacks will use a small boat to blow up a US warship. However, the DIA has already issued a report concluding that such a method of attack would be impossible to carry out successfully, and the agency sticks by this assessment. A video message put out by bin Laden in mid-September convinces Fallis that an al-Qaeda attack will happen in the next month or two.(see Mid-September 2000). Shortly after learning about this message, Fallis reaches “the ‘eureka point‘… in determining an impending terrorist attack.” This comes “from a still-classified intelligence report in September 2000, which he will not discuss.” [Washington Times, 8/26/2002] This may be a reference to a lead by the Able Danger team on increased al-Qaeda activity in Yemen at this time (see Late September 2000), and/or it may refer to other intelligence leads. Fallis goes to his supervisor and asks that at least a general warning of an attack in the Middle East be issued. He hopes such a warning will at least put US military forces in the region on a higher alert. His superior turns him down, and other superiors fail to even learn of his suggested warning. The USS Cole will be successfully attacked in the port of Aden, Yemen, by a small boat of terrorists on October 12, 2000 (see October 12, 2000) . [Washington Times, 8/26/2002] One day after the Cole attack, Fallis will resign in protest. According to Senator John Warner (R-VA),“What [Fallis] felt is that his assessment was not given that proper level of consideration by his superiors and, as such, was not incorporated in the final intelligence reports provided to military commanders in the [Middle East region].” [CNN, 10/25/2000]

Nabil al-Marabh stabs his Boston roommate in the knee during an argument on May 30, 2000. He pleads guilty in December 2000 to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. [Boston Herald, 9/20/2001] He is given a six-month suspended sentence, but fails to report to his probation officer. An arrest warrant is issued for him in March 2001. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/2001; Ottawa Citizen, 10/29/2001] In July, just after he has been released on bail in Canada, the Boston police go to al-Marabh’s former Boston address with the arrest warrant. His landlord tells them al-Marabh is gone and has not left a forwarding address. [New York Times, 10/14/2001]

A Pakistani businessman called Mohammed Atta (spelt with three ‘m’s) arrives in Prague aboard a Lufthansa flight from Saudi Arabia via Frankfurt. As he does not have a Czech visa, he is sent back, although he remains in the transit area at Prague Ruzyne airport for six hours. Unfortunately, he spends most of his time at the airport out of range of the security cameras. In the confusion immediately after 9/11, Czech counterintelligence will believe he may be the real lead hijacker Mohamed Atta (spelled with two ‘m’s)—he paid cash for his ticket and names are often spelled wrong—and that he had a meeting that could not wait, although this theory is eventually discounted. The real Mohamed Atta has a Czech visa, but it will not come into effect until the next day. Atta arrives in Prague on June 2 (see June 2-3, 2000). [Slate, 11/19/2003; Chicago Tribune, 8/29/2004; Czech Radio, 9/3/2004]

The FBI extracts a full confession from L’Houssaine Kherchtou, also known as “Joe the Moroccan,” a member of the cell that bombed the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya (see Late 1993-Late 1994 and 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). However, in contrast with methods used on al-Qaeda operatives after 9/11, he is not tortured and the FBI is at pains to treat him well. Relaxing Surroundings, Respectful Treatment - FBI agent Jack Cloonan will later say of the initial interrogation, which took place in Morocco, “The setting was beautiful, it was this grand house with stables out back, gazelles bouncing in the background, palm trees, three-course meals.” Kherchtou had a relationship with the British intelligence service MI6 (see Mid-Summer 1998 and Shortly After August 7, 1998), but had broken off contact with it and has to be lured to Morocco, where his debriefing is headed by Patrick Fitzgerald. Cloonan will later describe the questioning: “We advised [Kherchtou] of his rights. We told him he could have a lawyer anytime, and that he could pray at any time he wanted. We were letting the Moroccans sit in on this, and they were dumbfounded.… The Moroccans said he’d never talk. He never shut up for 10 days.” Fitzgerald denies Kherchtou a plea bargaining agreement, and says he must plead guilty to conspiracy to murder, for which he may receive a life sentence, though Fitzgerald promises to ask the judge for leniency. However, Cloonan will later say, “His wife needed money for medical treatment in Khartoum, and al-Qaeda had failed to provide it.” It is Cloonan’s “in” with Kherchtou, who is also sure that the US will not torture him. When Kherchtou wavers, Cloonan steps in. As he recalls: “I said, ‘Joe, you understand English, so I’d like you to go out and pray on this with your two Moroccan brothers.’ I thought Fitzy was going to give birth. Joe went out and prayed and came back and said yes.” He provides the FBI with details of the plot and becoming a star witness at the trial (see September 2000). [American Prospect, 6/19/2005; Vanity Fair, 12/16/2008]Invaluable Information - Kherchtou’s information, provided at a time when the US knows comparatively little about al-Qaeda, is, in Cloonan’s assessment, invaluable. “He told us about a lot of things,” Cloonan later says. “We learned how they recruited people, their front organizations, how they used NGOs [non-governmental organizations], false passports, what they thought about kidnapping, how they developed targets, did their surveillance, a day in the life of Osama bin Laden, what weapons they used, what vehicles they drove, who was the principal liaison with the Sudanese government, that there was a relationship between al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, how they did their training exercises, their finances, and their membership.” After the trial, he enters the witness protection program in the US. Four of his onetime associates will receive life sentences as a direct result of his information. [Vanity Fair, 12/16/2008]FBI Use Kherchtou as Example of Successful Interrogation Tacticss - FBI officials will later compare this outcome favorably to procedures used by other US agencies after 9/11. For example, following the detainee abuse scandals after 9/11, FBI manager Tom Harrington will write that the FBI has “been successful for many years obtaining confessions via non-confrontational interviewing techniques.” Cloonan will later contrast Kherchtou’s treatment with that of al-Qaeda training manager Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi in December 2001, when the US sent al-Libi to Egypt to be tortured and interrogated, but some of the information he provided there turned out to be false (see December 19, 2001 and January 2002 and After). [American Prospect, 6/19/2005]

Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri sends a close associate, Mahmoud Es Sayed, to Italy. His task is to revitalize an Egyptian Islamist network in Milan and northern Italy, by setting up new cells and establishing contacts with other extremist networks operating in the area. He applies for asylum and, during the proceedings on his application, states that he is connected to Islamic Jihad. However, he is granted asylum anyway. He maintains close ties with one radical mosque in Milan, the Islamic Cultural Institute, and immediately becomes the undisputed leader of the city’s other extremist mosque, the Via Quaranta mosque. The Italian authorities, who are investigating radical Islamist networks at this time, learn of his arrival and importance within a few months. [Vidino, 2006, pp. 52, 221-2] There is evidence to indicate that Es Sayed has foreknowledge of 9/11 (see August 12, 2000 and September 4, 2001).

Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed in 2000. [Source: Reuters]In 2002, French author Bernard-Henri Levy is presented evidence by government officials in New Delhi, India, that Saeed Sheikh makes repeated calls to ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed during the summer of 2000. Later, Levy gets unofficial confirmation from sources in Washington regarding these calls that the information he was given in India is correct. He notes that someone in the United Arab Emirates using a variety of aliases sends Mohamed Atta slightly over $100,000 between June and September of this year (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000 and (July-August 2000)), and the timing of these phone calls and the money transfers may have been the source of news reports that Mahmood Ahmed ordered Saeed Sheikh to send $100,000 to Mohamed Atta (see October 7, 2001). However, he also notes that there is evidence of Sheikh sending Atta $100,000 in August 2001 (see Early August 2001), so the reports could refer to that, or both $100,000 transfers could involve Mahmood Ahmed, Saeed Sheikh, and Mohamed Atta. [Levy, 2003, pp. 320-324]

Anonymous government sources later claim that Mohamed Atta visits fellow hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Omar al-Bayoumi. These same sources claim al-Bayoumi is identified after September 11 as an “advance man” for al-Qaeda. [Washington Times, 11/26/2002] Other reports have suggested Atta visited Alhazmi and Almihdhar in San Diego, but the FBI has not confirmed this. [US Congress, 7/24/2003 ]

Alleged al-Qaeda Hamburg cell member Abdelghani Mzoudi attends an al-Qaeda training camp. Mzoudi has long been an associate of future 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and others in the Hamburg cell. In the summer of 2002, a witness will tell German intelligence that Mzoudi was seen at one of the al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Mounir El Motassadeq, a member of the Hamburg cell, will later testify in a German court that he met Mzoudi in Afghanistan (see May 22 to August 2000). Their mutual acquaintance Zakariya Essabar is at the same camp as El Motassadeq at this time (see January-October 2000). [Associated Press, 5/9/2003] Mzoudi will later be convicted of a role in the 9/11 attacks, but will then be acquitted after the US does not allow a key witness in its custody to be questioned (see February 5, 2004-June 8, 2005).

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. [Source: ABC]Italian resident Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who previously informed for the CIA on extremists in Albania (see August 27, 1995 and Shortly After and May 1997-2000), moves from Rome to Milan to live with a close associate of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri (see Before Spring 2000 and Summer 2000). Al-Zawahiri’s associate, Mahmoud Es Sayed, and Nasr arrive in Milan at the same time, and it appears their movements are coordinated. Nasr actually lives in Es Sayed’s apartment and the pair make use of two radical mosques in Milan, the Via Quaranta mosque, which is their headquarters, and the Islamic Cultural Institute (ICI), which is associated with a cell of radical Islamists that works with al-Qaeda and appears to have foreknowledge of 9/11 (see August 12, 2000 and March 2001). The ICI has a reputation as the most radical Islamic center in Italy, was a key supply point for Muslims fighting in Bosnia (see Late 1993-December 14, 1995), and was connected to the first World Trade Center bombing (see Late 1993-1994). Nasr serves as deputy imam at the ICI and preaches anti-US sermons. Italian law enforcement authorities monitor him with bugs in his apartment and through a tap on his phone, finding out that after 9/11 he recruits Muslims to go and fight in Afghanistan. He does not seem to be directly involved in serious illegal activity, but the information the Italians gain helps them monitor other radicals. His relationship with the CIA during his time in Italy is unclear, but in one monitored call after 9/11 he appears to be dissuading another radical from attacking Jews and in another he tells an associate not to carry out a car bombing. [Chicago Tribune, 7/2/2005; Vidino, 2006, pp. 242] The CIA will kidnap Nasr in 2003 (see Noon February 17, 2003).

Under interrogation after 9/11, al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash will claim he met some of the 9/11 hijackers at Kandahar airport in Afghanistan in the summer of 2000. Although he will not be able to recall all of them, he will say the group includes Satam Al Suqami, Waleed and Wail Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari, Hamza Alghamdi, Salem Alhazmi, and Majed Moqed. He will say he was closest to Saeed Alghamdi, whom he convinced to become a martyr and whom he asked to recruit a friend, Ahmed Alghamdi, to the same cause. However, doubts will later be expressed about the reliability of such statements from prisoners like bin Attash, due to the methods used to obtain them (see June 16, 2004) [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 233-4] Al-Qaeda’s division of passports and host country issues is based at the airport and it alters passports, visas and identification cards. Some people involved in the plot will later be reported to have altered travel documents (see July 23, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 56 ] 9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alnami and would-be hijacker Mushabib al-Hamlan are also said to be at the same Kandahar camp, Al Farooq, and are assigned to guard the airport. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 526] By the late 1990s, the Kandahar airport will become the main logistics lifeline for al-Qaeda and the Taliban to the outside world. One Ariana pilot will later recall, “I would see Arabs with [satellite] phones walking around the terminal, in touch with the Taliban at the highest levels.” On one occasion, he sees Taliban ruler Mullah Omar meeting in the middle of the airport with a rebel leader from Tajikistan, surrounded by aides. “There they were, cross-legged on their mats, chattering into cell phones.” [Farah and Braun, 2007, pp. 140] At this time, the Kandahar airport is being mainly used by Ariana Airlines, which has been completely co-opted by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and aircraft companies controlled by international arms dealer Victor Bout (see 1998).

The General Accounting Office (GAO) issues a report examining problems affecting the performance of security screening staff at US airports. It warns: “The threat of attacks on aircraft by terrorists or others remains a persistent and growing concern for the United States. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the trend in terrorism against US targets is toward large-scale incidents designed for maximum destruction, terror, and media impact.” Though the GAO describes the performance of screeners in detecting dangerous objects like handguns as “unsatisfactory,” it makes no recommendations to revise current screening practices. [General Accounting Office, 6/2000, pp. 6-8, 20 ; Boston Globe, 9/20/2001]

Cover of the report of the National Commission on Terrorism. [Source: Diane Publishing Co.]The National Commission on Terrorism releases its report warning the US against the growing threat of terrorism. The bipartisan commission, headed by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, was created by Congress in 1999. Bremer, a career diplomat, has long been involved in counterterrorism policy-making, and served as the ambassador at large for counterterrorism during the Reagan administration. The report starts with a quote from Thomas C. Schelling’s foreword to Roberta Wohlstetter’s book, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, explaining why governments are often ill-prepared for surprise attacks. It says the US faces a more lethal and unpredictable enemy: “Today’s terrorists seek to inflict mass casualties, and they are attempting to do so both overseas and on American soil. They are less dependent on state sponsorship and are, instead, forming loose, transnational affiliations based on religious or ideological affinity and a common hatred of the United States.” The report warns that while the number of terrorist incidents has gone down, the number of casualties per attack has increased. Moreover, religiously motivated groups, such as Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, present a new challenge for intelligence agencies. They are less hierarchical, have a variety of sources of funding and support, and are therefore “more difficult to predict, track, and penetrate.” In response, the US must pursue an aggressive policy to gather intelligence on terrorist groups, sanction countries sponsoring terrorists, and prepare for a catastrophic terrorist attack on the homeland, possibly one involving weapons of mass destruction. The report also calls for monitoring the immigration status of foreign students. [National Commisson on Terrorism, 6/2000; New York Times, 6/4/2000; NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 6/6/2000; New York Times, 9/12/2001]

CIA Director George Tenet makes a secret trip to Pakistan to complain about funds being moved through Islamic charities to al-Qaeda. This is part of an effort coordinated by the National Security Council to cut off the vast sums of money that intelligence officials believe flow to bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network through Islamic charities and wealthy donors from across the Middle East. The US campaign prompts the Pakistani government in early 2001 to make some efforts to ban raising funds explicitly designated for holy war. Former US officials will later claim the trip is part of a larger effort to disrupt bin Laden’s financial network following the 1998 US embassy bombings. [Wall Street Journal, 10/1/2001]

Around this time, a number of very suspicious web domains are registered, including the following: attackamerica.com, attackonamerica.com, attackontwintowers.com, august11horror.com, august11terror. com, horrorinamerica.com, horrorinnewyork.com, nycterroriststrike.com, pearlharborinmanhattan.com, terrorattack2001.com, towerofhorror.com, tradetowerstrike.com, worldtradecenter929.com, worldtrade-centerbombs.com, worldtradetowerattack.com, worldtradetowerstrike.com, and wterroristattack2001.com. A counterterrorism expert says, “It’s unbelievable that [the registration company] would register these domain names” and “if they did make a comment to the FBI, it’s unbelievable that the FBI didn’t react to it.” Several of the names mention 2001 and, apparently, there were no other websites mentioning other years. Registering a site requires a credit card, so presumably, this story could provide leads, but it is unclear what leads the FBI gets from this, if any. No sites will be active on 9/11. [CNS News, 9/19/2001] All of the domain name registrations will expire around June 2001. [CNS News, 9/20/2001] This story will later be incorrectly called an “urban legend,” [Insight, 3/11/2002]

Video footage of al alleged al-Qaeda training camp in Sulawesi, Indonesia. [Source: CNN]Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second in command, and Mohammed Atef, al-Qaeda’s military chief, visit the Indonesian province of Aceh to examine expanding al-Qaeda operations there. They are guided by al-Qaeda operatives Agus Dwikarna and Omar al-Faruq. Dwikarna is working as a regional head of the Indonesia branch of the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, a charity directly tied to the Saudi government. US officials already strongly suspected Al Haramain helped fund the 1998 African embassy bombings (see Autumn 1997), though none of their offices were shut down. Dwikarna uses Al Haramain to funnel al-Qaeda money into Southeast Asia and give al-Qaeda operatives cover as charity workers; he also runs an al-Qaeda training camp on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Dwikarna will be arrested in 2001 and al-Faruq in 2002. Both will confess to using Al Haramain to fund al-Qaeda operations. Despite this, Al Haramain’s Indonesia’s office not only stays open, but in 2002 it signs an agreement with the Indonesian government to expand operations while it continues to divert charity money to militant operations. The United Nations will finally blacklist Al Haramain offices worldwide in 2004 (see March 2002-September 2004). [CNN, 8/30/2002; Ressa, 2003, pp. 95-96; Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 41, 202] At the time, an Indonesian government mole named Fauzi Hasbi has deeply penetrated Jemaah Islamiyah, al-Qaeda’s main Southeast Asian affiliate (see 1979-February 22, 2003). Hasbi does not meet with al-Zawahiri and Atef during their visit, but he does speak to al-Zawahiri on the telephone. Hasbi also met with al-Faruq in December 1999. It is unknown if Hasbi knew enough to potentially lead to a capture of the two al-Qaeda leaders. [International Crisis Group, 12/11/2002]

A covert recording made by the FBI indicates that a Turkish agent is trying to sell nuclear information that he stole from an air force base in Alabama, according to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds will later say that he meets two Saudi Arabian businessmen in Detroit to sell the information. When she listens to the recording, she hears the agent saying, “We have a package and we’re going to sell it for $250,000.” The agent is connected to a ring fronted by Turkish and Israeli elements that arranges the illicit transfer of nuclear information and technology to Pakistan via Turkey (see Mid-Late 1990s and (1997-2002)). [Sunday Times (London), 1/6/2008]

The Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), which helps obtain warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), discovers errors in several al-Qaeda related FISA applications under a counterterrorist program called “Catcher’s Mitt.” The OIPR verbally notifies the FISA Court of the errors, which are mostly in affidavits submitted by supervisory special agents at field offices. Then, in September and October 2000, the OIPR submits two pleadings to the court regarding approximately 75-100 applications with errors starting in July 1997. Many of the errors concern misleading statements about the nature of collaboration between criminal and intelligence agents. Most of these applications stated that the FBI New York field office, where the I-49 squad focusing on al-Qaeda was based (see January 1996 and Late 1998-Early 2002), had separate teams of agents handling criminal and intelligence investigations. But in actual fact the I-49 agents intermingled with criminal agents working on intelligence cases and intelligence agents working on criminal cases. Therefore, contrary to what the FISA Court has been told, agents working on a criminal investigation have had unrestricted access to information from a parallel intelligence investigation—a violation of the so-called “wall,” the set of bureaucratic procedures designed to separate criminal and intelligence investigations (see July 19, 1995). [Newsweek, 5/27/2002; Newsweek, 3/29/2004; US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 36-37 ] The information about al-Qaeda in these cases is also shared with assistant US attorneys without FISA permission being sought or granted first. Other errors include the FBI director wrongly asserting that the target of a FISA application was not under criminal investigation, omissions of material facts about a prior relationship between the FBI and a target, and an interview of a target by an assistant US attorney. [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, 5/17/2002] This leads the FISA Court to impose new requirements regarding the “wall” (see October 2000). Similar problems will be found in FISA applications for surveillance of Hamas operatives (see March 2001).

9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta arrives in the early morning in Prague, Czech Republic, by bus from Cologne, Germany. He plays on slot machines at the Happy Day Casino, then disappears. It will never be discovered where he sleeps in Prague. He takes the midday flight to New York the next day (see June 3, 2000). [Czech Radio, 9/3/2004] After 9/11, this trip will fuel the controversy over whether Atta meets an Iraqi agent in Prague in 2001 (see April 8, 2001 and September 18, 2001-April 2007). It is not entirely clear why Atta chooses to fly to the US from the Czech Republic, although 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will be reported to have lived in Prague in the late 1990s (see Mid-1996-September 11, 2001).

After arriving in the US on May 29 and June 3, 2000, 9/11 hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Mohamed Atta meet up and reportedly spend all of June in the New York area. The 9/11 Commission later reports them spending the month staying in a series of short-term rentals in New York City while searching for a flight school to attend, e-mailing a New Hampshire school on June 5 and inquiring with a New Jersey school on June 22. A day after arriving in the US, Atta receives a mobile phone he bought listing his address as an Oklahoma flight school he subsequently visits (see July 2-3, 2000). According to the FBI, Alshehhi enrolls at an English language school, and the pair remains in the area until July 2. [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 519] However, some accounts suggest they leave before this. According to the owner of the Venice, Florida flight school subsequently attended by Atta and Alshehhi, the pair first visits his school on July 1. [US Congress, 3/19/2002] And according to the later statement of a local sheriff, some of the hijackers, including Atta, may live and take flight training in Punta Gorda, Florida, prior to moving to Venice (see Before July 2000). After 9/11, a federal investigator will reveal that Atta and Alshehhi rented rooms in the Bronx and Brooklyn in spring 2000. Whether this included the period prior to when Atta officially first entered the US, in June, is unstated (see Spring 2000). [Associated Press, 12/8/2001]

While in the US, future 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta generally makes phone calls using pay phones with a variety of prepaid calling cards. One day after arriving in New York City on June 3, 2000 (see June 3, 2000), Atta buys a cell phone and calling card at a store in Manhattan. Later in the month, he uses the phone to make more than a dozen calls to al-Qaeda facilitator Ali Abdul Aziz Ali in the Middle East (see June 28-30, 2000). But after about a month, he stops using that phone, and uses pay phones and more difficult to trace prepaid calling cards for his overseas calls. For instance, from February 10 to 12, 2001, he makes a series of calls to his relatives in Egypt (mother, father, sister, and grandfather) from a pay phone in Georgia. At the same time, he generally uses a cell phone to make calls within the US. For instance, he leases a cell phone from January 2001 to the end of May 2001, and he uses others. Other hijackers, like Marwan Alshehhi and Hani Hanjour, also have their own cell phones for calls inside the US. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 69 ; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 119, 124, 147 ; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001 ] But the hijackers use pay phones with prepaid calling cards often. Investigators will later determine that the hijackers used at least 133 different prepaid calling cards, making them hard to track. [Bamford, 2008, pp. 53]

The Statue of Liberty, with the World Trade Center standing behind it. [Source: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey]The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) practices two scenarios in which aircraft are hijacked, and in one scenario the hijackers plan to crash the plane into the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, while in the other the hijackers plan to crash into the White House in Washington, DC. The scenarios are included in a command post exercise conducted by the Continental United States NORAD Region called Falcon Indian. NORAD’s three air defense sectors in the continental United States, including the Northeast Air Defense Sector based in Rome, New York, are participating in this exercise. [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 8/25/1989; US Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services, 8/17/2004; Arkin, 2005, pp. 362]Hijackers Take Over Learjet, Plan to Crash into White House - The two hijacking scenarios will be described by General Richard Myers, currently the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee in August 2004. According to Myers, one of the scenarios involves a Learjet being hijacked and maintaining a “tight formation with [a] Canadair airliner, loaded with explosives.” (From Myers’s description it is unclear whether the Learjet or the Canadair airliner is the plane carrying explosives.) According to Myers, the “Learjet planned to crash into the White House.” In response to the simulated crisis, exercise participants have to follow hijack checklists, exercise command and control, and coordinate with external agencies. Communist Group Plans to Crash Plane into Statue of Liberty - The other scenario is based around a “Communist Party faction” that hijacks an aircraft “bound from [the] western to [the] eastern United States,” according to Myers. There are “[h]igh explosives on board” the aircraft and the fictitious hijackers intend “to crash into the Statue of Liberty.” During the simulation, the FAA requests assistance from the military. Exercise participants have to again follow hijack checklists, exercise command and control, and coordinate with external agencies, as well as carrying out a handover of responsibilities between NORAD sectors. [US Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services, 8/17/2004] Even though these two NORAD exercise scenarios involve hijackers attempting to use planes as weapons, the 9/11 Commission will claim in its final report, “The threat of terrorists hijacking commercial airliners within the United States—and using them as guided missiles—was not recognized by NORAD before 9/11.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17] A previous Falcon Indian exercise in November 1999 included a scenario of hijackers planning to crash an aircraft into the United Nations headquarters building in New York (see November 6, 1999). [US Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services, 8/17/2004]

The King Fahd Mosque in Culver City. [Source: Damian Dovarganes]Hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi travel to Los Angeles with an associate, Mohdar Abdullah, before Almihdhar leaves the US the next day (see June 10, 2000). When they visit the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, Abdullah is surprised that Alhazmi and Almihdhar already know several people at the mosque. Abdullah will later say, “I was surprised that anybody at the mosque knew them, because as far as I knew Alhazmi and Almihdhar hadn’t visited Los Angeles since they arrived in the US.” They meet one of the hijackers’ Los Angeles acquaintances, known as Khallam, again later that night at their motel. According to the 9/11 Commission, Khallam asks Abdullah to leave the motel room, so he can talk to Alhazmi and Almihdhar in private. However, Abdullah will later dispute this, saying he is not asked leave the room, but that Alhazmi leaves to make an international phone call from a pay phone. The identity of the person he calls is unknown, but it is possible that he talks to Ahmed al-Hada, an al-Qaeda operative whose safe house is monitored by the US and who Alhazmi sometimes calls from the US (see Early 2000-Summer 2001). Khallam will apparently never be found after 9/11. The FBI will consider the possibility that he is Khallad bin Attash, as there are some reports that bin Attash is in the US at this time and met the mosque’s imam, Fahad al Thumairy. However, this theory will never be confirmed. [Los Angeles Times, 7/24/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 216, 514] The next day, Alhazmi, Abdullah and an unknown man make a casing video at Los Angeles Airport (see June 10, 2000). It is possible that the third man is Khallam.

Khalid Almihdhar. [Source: FBI]9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar flies from San Diego to Frankfurt, Germany. [US Congress, 9/20/2002] He is accompanied to the airport by another hijacker, Nawaf Alhazmi, and an unnamed associate (see June 10, 2000). Authorities later believe that Almihdhar visits his cousin-in-law Ramzi Bin al-Shibh and other al-Qaeda members in bin al-Shibh’s cell. Since the CIA fails to notify Germany about its suspicions of Almihdhar and bin al-Shibh, both of whom were seen attending the al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia in January, German police fail to monitor them and another chance to uncover the 9/11 plot is missed. [Die Zeit (Hamburg), 10/1/2002; US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 135 ] FBI Director Mueller and the congressional inquiry into 9/11 will claim that Almihdhar does not return to the US for over a year [US Congress, 9/20/2002; US Congress, 9/26/2002] , although it is possible that Almihdhar does return before then. For instance, there are indications Almihdhar attends a flight school in Arizona in early 2001. [Arizona Republic, 9/28/2001]

Hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi and one of his associates, Mohdar Abdullah, go to Los Angeles airport with hijacker Khalid Almihdhar, who is returning to the Middle East via Germany (see June 10, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 222] Together with a third man, Alhazmi and Abdullah shoot videocamera footage there. They appear to be scouting out the airport and record secretly near the security area. The identity of the third man is not known, but he may be Khallam, an associate of Alhazmi and Almihdhar’s who they met the day before (see June 9, 2000). Al-Qaeda had plotted to bomb Los Angeles Airport not long before (see December 14, 1999). The tapes, which are not found until Abdullah is deported, will cause the FBI to re-start their investigation of him in 2006. [US District Court, Southern District of California, 10/29/2004 ; MSNBC, 9/8/2006]

FISA court judge Royce Lamberth was angry with the FBI over misleading statements made in FISA wiretap applications. [Source: Public domain]While monitoring foreign terrorists in the US, the FBI listens to calls made by suspects as a part of an operation called Catcher’s Mitt, which is curtailed at this time due to misleading statements by FBI agents. It is never revealed who the targets of the FBI’s surveillance are under this operation, but below are some of the terrorism suspects under investigation in the US at the time: Imran Mandhai, Shuyeb Mossa Jokhan and Adnan El Shukrijumah in Florida. They are plotting a series of attacks there, but Mandhai and Jokhan are brought in for questioning by the FBI and surveillance of them stops in late spring (see November 2000-Spring 2002 and May 2, 2001); Another Florida cell connected to Blind Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman. The FBI has been investigating it since 1993 (see (October 1993-November 2001)); Al-Qaeda operatives in Denver (see March 2000); A Boston-based al-Qaeda cell involving Nabil al-Marabh and Raed Hijazi. Cell members provide funding to terrorists, fight abroad, and are involved in document forging (see January 2001, Spring 2001, and Early September 2001); Fourteen of the hijackers’ associates the FBI investigates before 9/11. The FBI is still investigating four of these people while the hijackers associate with them; [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 169 ] Hamas operatives such as Mohammed Salah in Chicago. Salah invests money in the US and sends it to the occupied territories to fund attacks (see June 9, 1998). When problems are found with the applications for the wiretap warrants, an investigation is launched (see Summer-October 2000), and new requirements for warrant applications are put in place (see October 2000). From this time well into 2001, the FBI is forced to shut down wiretaps of al-Qaeda-related suspects connected to the 1998 US embassy bombings and Hamas (see March 2001 and April 2001). One source familiar with the case says that about 10 to 20 al-Qaeda related wiretaps have to be shut down and it becomes more difficult to get permission for new FISA wiretaps. Newsweek notes, “The effect [is] to stymie terror surveillance at exactly the moment it was needed most: requests from both Phoenix [with the Ken Williams memo (see July 10, 2001)] and Minneapolis [with Zacarias Moussaoui’s arrest] for wiretaps [will be] turned down [by FBI superiors],” (see August 21, 2001 and August 28, 2001). [Newsweek, 5/27/2002] Robert Wright is an FBI agent who led the Vulgar Betrayal investigation looking into allegations that Saudi businessman Yassin al-Qadi helped finance the embassy bombings, and other matters. In late 2002, he will claim to discover evidence that some of the FBI intelligence agents who stalled and obstructed his investigation were the same FBI agents who misrepresented the FISA petitions. [Judicial Watch, 9/11/2002]

When 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar leaves the US in June (see June 10, 2000), he flies to Frankfurt, Germany, and then to Oman in the Middle East. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 135 ] From there he returns to his family’s home in Sana’a, Yemen. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 237] His wife and children live at an al-Qaeda communications hub that is run by his father in law, Ahmed al-Hada. The hub is being monitored by the NSA and CIA. Phone calls to and from the hub, including ones made by Almihdhar and other hijackers, are intercepted, rooms in the building are bugged, and spy satellites record visitors (see Late August 1998, Late 1998-Early 2002, and Early 2000-Summer 2001). Based on information gained from monitoring this house, the CIA and local intelligence services mounted a major operation against Almihdhar, other hijackers, and several more al-Qaeda operatives in December 1999 and January 2000, when they were followed around the Middle East and South Asia and monitored during an al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia (see December 29, 1999, January 2-5, 2000, and January 5-8, 2000). So presumably US intelligence should have been aware of this visit to the hub and who Almihdhar was, but what exactly was known and who may have known it has not been made public. He will return to the hub in February 2001 and stay an unknown length of time (see February 2001).

Florida Flight Training Center. [Source: FBI]Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, arrives in the US, flying from Munich to Atlanta, Georgia (or Newark, according to the 9/11 Commission). He enters on a tourist visa, issued in Berlin on May 25, 2000. He then flies to Venice, Florida, where he has already arranged to take full-time lessons at the Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC). However, he never files an application to change his status from tourist to student. According to the 9/11 Commission, “This failure to maintain a legal immigration status provided a solid legal basis to deny him entry on each of the six subsequent occasions in which he reentered the United States. But because there was no student tracking system in place and because neither Jarrah nor the school complied with the law’s notification requirements, immigration inspectors could not know he was out of status.” Jarrah begins the private pilot program at FFTC on June 28, aiming to get a multi-engine license. His training will cost $16,000, which his parents wire to him. [Longman, 2002, pp. 90-91; US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 11-12 ] FFTC is just down the road from Huffman Aviation, a flight school where Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi soon begin training. [Associated Press, 9/9/2002]

From June 28 to 30, 2000, there are over a dozen calls from future 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta’s cell phone in New York to the home phone of 9/11 facilitator Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (a.k.a. Ammar al-Baluchi) in the United Arab Emirates. Ali is the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. On June 29, Ali sends $5,000 to 9/11 hijacker Marwan Alshehhi in the US, and more money from Ali to the hijackers follows over the next few months (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000). Ali will later be imprisoned by the US. In a 2007 tribunal hearing, in proclaiming his innocence, he will admit the calls and money transfers took place, but say that he spoke to Alshehhi, and he thought Alshehhi was just a businessman (see March 30, 2007). Atta and Alshsehhi are traveling together at the time. [US Department of Defense, 4/12/2007 ] It seems probable that US investigators will later learn of these calls because they are one of the rare times Atta’s cell phone is used for overseas calls (instead of using pay phones), and thus they show up on phone records (see June 4, 2000-September 11, 2001).

Future 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah allegedly tries to get his flight school in Florida to help hijacker associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh obtain a US visa. Bin al-Shibh wants to come to the US to train as a pilot, supposedly so he can be the fourth pilot in the 9/11 plot, but he has been having trouble getting a US visa (see May 17, 2000-May 2001). Sometime between June 28 and December 2000, when he is training at the Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) in Venice, Florida, Jarrah gets to be friends with Arne Kruithof, the owner of the school. Kruithof will later recall that Jarrah “told me that he knew somebody who was also interested in getting a commercial pilot license.… He said his name was Ramzi something.… When I found out that [Ramzi’s] English was poor, we referred him to a language school through which he tried to obtain a visa.… When I asked Ziad why, if he knew, his visa was denied, he said, ‘No, I do not know that.’ We did then make a few phone calls, but nobody could tell us anything.” [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 132] Bin al-Shibh wires the school a $2,200 deposit in August 2000 in anticipation of getting the visa, but he never gets it. [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 225]

Ziad Jarrah, with dark blue shirt and sunglasses, leaning against an airplane. He is surrounded by his fellow flight school students. [Source: History Channel]9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah attends the Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) in Venice, Florida, where he takes lessons in a Cessna 152. According to the FBI, he finishes his training there in December 2000. [Der Spiegel, 2002, pp. 12; US Congress, 9/26/2002] The school’s owner, Arne Kruithof, later says Jarrah is enrolled there until January 15, 2001. [Longman, 2002, pp. 91] The 9/11 Commission says he studies there until January 31, 2001. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 12 ] However, these latter two accounts conflict with other reports, according to which Jarrah is elsewhere at the same time (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001). According to the 9/11 Commission, in early August, just weeks after commencing training, Jarrah gains a single-engine private pilot certificate. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224] However, Arne Kruithof says that although Jarrah eventually receives his private pilot license and instrument rating, he does not do so while at FFTC. Kruithof later claims that Jarrah becomes an “average” pilot, saying, “We had to do more to get him ready than others. His flight skills seemed to be a little bit out there.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 91] At the same time as Jarrah is in Venice, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi attend Huffman Aviation, which is just up the road from FFTC. [Associated Press, 9/9/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224] Yet no reports describe him ever meeting them while they are so near to each other. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who shared an apartment in Hamburg with Mohamed Atta (see November 1, 1998-February 2001), is supposed to join Jarrah at FFTC, wiring the school a $2,200 deposit in August 2000, but is repeatedly unable to obtain the necessary US visa (see May 17, 2000-May 2001). [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 225]

Ziad Jarrah flying in Florida in 2000. [Source: Der Speigel]After entering the United States (see June 27-28, 2000), Ziad Jarrah lives in Venice, Florida, while taking flying lessons (see (June 28-December 2000)). According to the 9/11 Commission, he stays with some of his flight school’s instructors. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224] Other accounts describe him “spending most of the time sleeping on a sofa in the apartment the other students shared,” or simply as rooming “with three others.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 91; Corbin, 2003, pp. 155] For six weeks, Thorsten Biermann, a 23-year-old fellow flight student from Germany, rooms with Jarrah. According to Biermann, Jarrah keeps another apartment in Venice, but does not sleep in it. [Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001; Longman, 2002, pp. 91-92] As well as paying for his flying lessons, Jarrah’s family in the Lebanon regularly wires him generous pocket money. He buys himself a car, which he lets other flight students borrow, and often cooks for his flatmates. During his time in the US, Jarrah maintains close contact with his girlfriend Aysel Senguen who is in Germany, phoning her hundreds of times and frequently e-mailing her. [Corbin, 2003, pp. 155; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224-225]

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) prepares to attack US military personnel in Singapore, but consults al-Qaeda’s top leaders and passes them a casing video before it begins carrying out the plot. The initial plan is to attack a bus that transports US military personnel from a metro station in Singapore and is devised by a JI operative called Faiz abu Baker Bafana. However, when the proposal is shown to JI leader Hambali, Bafana is told that he needs the approval of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) for the operation and that he has to travel to Afghanistan to get it. Bafana cannot find KSM, so he talks to Mohammed Atef, who promises to provide funding and suicide bombers, as long as JI contributes explosives and transport. KSM subsequently sends Bafana money for the operation. 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar apparently visits Malaysia twice to move the plot forward (see October 2000 and June 2001). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 3/8/2006] JI sends Atef a casing video, which will be found after the US invasion of Afghanistan. Even though the US sits on the video for a month, Singapore is able to roll the plot up based on information it obtains on its own (see November 15-Late December 2001).

Richard Reid. [Source: Plymouth County Jail]MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, has Zacarias Moussaoui under surveillance. The French government had asked MI5 to monitor him in 1999 (see 1999), but it has not been confirmed if this is in response to that request. It is not clear when the surveillance begins, but the Observer reports that it lasts for “months” and ends when Moussaoui leaves Britain on December 9, 2000, to attend an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. The extent of Moussaoui’s surveillance is not publicly known; the only reported detail is that some phone calls between Moussaoui and Richard Reid are intercepted. Reid will later be convicted for attempting to blow up a passenger airliner with a bomb in his shoe (see December 22, 2001). MI5 records the conversations between them made inside Britain. Opposition politicians in Britain will later criticize MI5 for not realizing Reid’s al-Qaeda ties between 9/11 and Reid’s shoe bomb plot over two months later. [Observer, 12/30/2001; Wall Street Journal, 12/31/2001] Moussaoui appears to be in contact with other al-Qaeda figures during this time. For instance, he travels to Yazid Sufaat’s house in Malaysia in September 2000 and again in October 2000 (see September-October 2000), and Ramzi bin al-Shibh stays in London for a week in early December 2000 and meets with Moussaoui (see October 2000-February 2001). [Independent, 12/11/2001] However, it is not known if such contacts are monitored as well.

Sheriff William E. Clement [Source: Charlotte County Sheriff's Office]In the weeks after 9/11, Sheriff William E. Clement will say he believes some of the 9/11 hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, resided in the area of Punta Gorda, Florida, and attended a flight school at Charlotte County Airport. Clement will say that some local businesses recognize Atta from pictures shown after 9/11, and say he may have used an alias. According to Clement, “It looks like some of these terrorists were here and then went to Venice.” [Charlotte Sun, 9/21/2001] Along with hijacker Marwan Alshehhi, Atta moves to Venice, about 30 miles north of Punta Gorda, at the beginning of July (see July 1-3, 2000). Yet, according to official accounts, Atta first enters the US on June 3, 2000, and, along with Alshehhi, remains in the New York area until the start of July (see June 2000).

A CIA informant reveals that a militant group based in Sidon, Lebanon that is affiliated with bin Laden is planning to attack a US naval ship somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean, probably off the coast of Lebanon. [Miniter, 2003, pp. 215] This is a probable reference to Asbat al-Ansar, the only group that fits such a profile. [US Department of State, 5/21/2002] The CIA and Defense Department discount the threat, pointing out the US is not deploying ships near Lebanon. However, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will later say he was alarmed by the warning because it showed increased ambitions for al-Qaeda in going after hardened military targets. [Miniter, 2003, pp. 215] Al-Qaeda will successfully bomb the USS Cole several months later in Yemen (see October 12, 2000).

Bush, center, and some of the Muslim activists meeting with him in Austin, Texas. Alamoudi is standing over his left shoulder. [Source: CAIR]Presidential candidate George W. Bush meets with Abdurahman Alamoudi and other suspected Islamic militant sympathizers. US intelligence has suspected Alamoudi of ties to bin Laden and other militant figures since 1994 (see Shortly After March 1994), but he has nonetheless grown in importance as a Muslim political activist. It will later be reported that Alamoudi “sought to secure the support first of the Clinton administration in seeking to repeal certain antiterrorist laws, but when Bill Clinton failed to deliver, Alamoudi defected to Bush, then governor of Texas.” [Insight, 10/23/2003] Alamoudi and other Muslim leaders meet with Bush in Austin, Texas, in July 2000, just one month before the Republican presidential convention. They offer their support to his presidential campaign in exchange for his commitment to repeal certain antiterrorist laws. A photo of the meeting shows Bush with Alamoudi, several open supporters of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups, the former head of the Pakistani Communist Party, and other unknown individuals. One photo likely taken at this meeting shows Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove there as well (see June 22, 2001). Bush and Rove also met with Alamoudi in 1999 (see 1999). [Insight, 10/23/2003] Some of Alamoudi’s radical connections are publicly known at the time, and in October 2000 the Bush campaign will return a $1,000 contribution from Alamoudi shortly after Hillary Clinton returned an Alamoudi contribution to her senate race. [Insight, 10/29/2001] Muslim activists like Alamoudi are hinging their political support on the repeal of the use of secret evidence in terrorism cases. The Bush campaign had already been strongly pushing for support from Muslim American voters (see 1998-September 2001 and March 12, 2000) and such ties continue to grow. During the second presidential debate on October 11, 2000, Bush will come out strongly for repealing the use of secret evidence, saying, “Arab-Americans are racially profiled in what’s called secret evidence. People are stopped, and we got to do something about that.” [Salon, 3/15/2004] Later in 2000, Alamoudi will meet with two suspected associates of the 9/11 hijackers (see October-November 2000), and in early 2001 he will attend a public conference attempting to unite militant groups, including al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad, to wage holy war against the US and Israel (see Late January 2001). Nonetheless, Bush will appear with Alamoudi several times even after 9/11(see September 14-26, 2001). Alamoudi will be sentenced to a long prison term in 2004 (see October 15, 2004).

Jack Roche. [Source: Agence France-Presse/ Getty Images]Jack Roche, an Australian Caucasian Muslim, tries to inform on al-Qaeda for Australia or the US, but is ignored. In April, Roche returned from a trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Malaysia, where he took an explosives training course and met with bin Laden, Mohammed Atef, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and other top al-Qaeda leaders. In Pakistan, Mohammed discussed attacking US jets in Australia and gave Roche money to start an al-Qaeda cell in Australia. Roche also met Hambali in Malaysia and was given more money there. Early this month, he tries to call the US embassy in Australia, but they ignore him. He then tries to contact The Australian intelligence agency several times, but they too ignore him. In September 2000, his housemate also tries to contact Australian intelligence about what he has learned from Roche but his call is ignored as well. Australian Prime Minister John Howard later acknowledges that authorities made a “very serious mistake” in ignoring Roche, though he also downplays the importance of Roche’s information. Roche is later sentenced to nine years in prison for conspiring with al-Qaeda to blow up an Israeli embassy. [BBC, 6/1/2004; Los Angeles Times, 6/7/2004]

A sign put up by the Taliban reads: “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan not only engenders illegal things forbidden but launches effective struggles against illicit drugs as these drugs are a great threat to personality, wisdom, life, health, economy, and morality.” [Source: BBC]The Taliban bans poppy growing in Afghanistan. As a result, the opium yield drops dramatically in 2001, from 3,656 tons to 185 tons. Of that, 83 percent is from Northern Alliance-controlled lands. This is supposedly done in response to Western pressure. [Observer, 11/25/2001; Guardian, 2/21/2002; Reuters, 3/3/2002] However, United Nations officials later suggest that the ban was actually used by the Taliban to drive up their drug profits. According to these officials, for several years, the Taliban had stockpiled over half of their annual opium harvest in a series of warehouses around the country. When the ban begins, a kilogram of opium sells for around $44 wholesale, but one year later the price rises to $400. [USA Today, 10/16/2001] Time magazine will later suggest that the ban was the idea of al-Qaeda’s financial experts working with Haji Juma Khan (see December 2001 and After) and other alleged top Afghan drug traffickers. The ban “meant huge profits for the Taliban and their trafficker friends who were sitting on large stockpiles when prices soared.” [Time, 8/2/2004]

Arne Kruithof. [Source: History Channel]According to some accounts, while he is taking lessons at Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) in Venice, alleged 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah appears an unlikely terrorist. Arne Kruithof, the school’s owner, later says Jarrah is “not just nice, but he had qualities you look for in a dear friend, someone you trust.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 92] He will tell the 9/11 Commission that Jarrah is “polite and easy to deal with,” and does not show “any hostility to the United States or to the West.” [9/11 Commission, 4/12/2004] Kruithof says Jarrah “would even offer to put out the trash cans at night, which no one else did,” and later remembers him “bringing me a six-pack of beer at home when I hurt my knee one time and sitting for hours on my sofa chatting.” Unlike other Middle Eastern students, Jarrah never seems uncomfortable or disapproving of the school’s receptionists, who wear skimpy skirts and tiny t-shirts. [Corbin, 2003, pp. 155] Furthermore, Jarrah drinks alcohol, having one or two beers, “but not three.” According to Kruithof, who later insists Jarrah’s demeanor was “not faked,” the school’s “entire staff does not believe that he had bad intentions,” and Jarrah “was a friend to all of us.” However, fellow flight student Thorsten Biermann, who rooms with Jarrah for six weeks, describes him as “introverted, a loner, he kept his distance.” Biermann will describe one occasion flying with Jarrah on a round-trip to Fort Lauderdale where, on the return, Jarrah insisted on both flying and manning the radio, and twice ignored Biermann’s pleas to refuel when the weather worsened. Biermann says: “I decided I did not want to fly with him anymore, and everyone I knew who flew with him felt the same way. It was as if he needed control.” Biermann will also say that Jarrah avoids pork and, contrary to what Kruithof claims, does not drink alcohol, even when they go to bars together. [New York Times, 9/23/2001; Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001; Longman, 2002, pp. 91-92]

Mohamed Atta. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division]According to some media reports, 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta receives around $100,000 in wire transfers from abroad around this time, as does Marwan Alshehhi. The New York Times will write: “The money for the operation began arriving… in the summer of 2000. Mr. Atta received slightly more than $100,000, Mr. Shehhi just less than that amount.” [New York Times, 11/4/2001; New York Times, 12/10/2001] The Financial Times will say Atta “received $109,440 in four wire transfers from the United Arab Emirates,” and Marwan Alshehhi “also received wire transfers totaling $100,000 over several months.” [Financial Times, 11/29/2001] PBS comments, “The FBI now says Atta and Alshehhi were being fed streams of money from abroad, eventually more than $100,000 each.” [PBS, 1/17/2002] However, the 9/11 Commission will only mention an amount of approximately $100,000 that is paid into a joint account of which Alshehhi is the main holder (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000). Some other transfers to the hijackers are also reported, but not confirmed on-the-record by US authorities (see June 2000-August 2001).

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arranges for the FBI assistant legal attaché in Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet a source, later known in a New York Times article as “Omar,” that has substantial information on Osama bin Laden, his operatives and operations. Omar will go on to play a key role in the investigation of the USS Cole bombing, as he will identify Khallad bin Attash, one of the masterminds behind the attack (see November 22-December 16, 2000 and January 4, 2001). However, because the assistant legal attaché cannot speak the source’s language and due to the value of the information Omar has, the CIA is asked to help and he is handled as a joint source. The CIA attempts to prevent the source from working on criminal investigations for the FBI, fearing he may be exposed in court, but these attempts are not successful. [New York Times, 4/11/2004; US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 264-5 ; New Yorker, 7/10/2006 ]

Rudi Dekkers. [Source: Peter Muhly / Agence France-Presse]9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi move from New York to Venice, Florida. [Chicago Sun-Times, 9/16/2001] They arrive at Huffman Aviation, a flying school at Venice Municipal Airport, on July 1, according to the school’s owner Rudi Dekkers, inquiring about taking lessons there. They are reported to also check out a flight school in Oklahoma at the beginning of this month (see July 2-3, 2000). They then return to Huffman—on July 3 according the Dekkers—and begin flight instruction, subsequently enrolling in the school’s Accelerated Pilot Program. When they register at the school, Atta and Alshehhi use their real names. Dekkers later states that they say they are unhappy with a flying school they attended up north, though he gives no details about the identity of this school. It will later be claimed that Atta and Alshehhi attended a flight school in Punta Gorda before moving to Venice (see Before July 2000). However, Punta Gorda is south, not north, of Venice. Paying by check, Atta will give $18,703.50 in total for his lessons, while Alshehhi gives $20,917.63. The money necessary to cover their training is sent to them in a series of transfers from Dubai (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000). [Washington Post, 9/19/2001; Washington Post, 9/30/2001; US Congress, 3/19/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224; St. Petersburg Times, 7/25/2004] Huffman’s owner Rudi Dekkers has what the St. Petersburg Times will describe as “a long history of troubled businesses, run-ins with the Federal Aviation Administration and numerous lawsuits.” [St. Petersburg Times, 7/25/2004] After 9/11 he will face even more lawsuits (see August 23, 2001-April 2004).

Charles Voss. [Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune]Having arrived in Venice, Florida, to take flying lessons, 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi rent a room in the south Venice home of Charles Voss, a bookkeeper at Huffman Aviation, and his wife Drucilla. They arrive in a rental car, but later in the week buy a red 1989 Pontiac, which they register to the Voss’s address. They are found to be unpleasant and messy guests, and after a week are asked to leave. Drucilla Voss later says, “We never talked. They ate all their meals out and really spent all their time in their room.” She describes them as “very sarcastic,” and says, “They gave me the impression they didn’t care much for women.” [Charlotte Sun, 9/13/2001; Charlotte Sun, 9/13/2001; Chicago Sun-Times, 9/16/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 9/27/2001; Wall Street Journal, 10/16/2001]

Huffman Aviation logo. [Source: Huffman Aviation]9/11 hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Mohamed Atta attend Huffman Aviation, a flight school in Venice, Florida and enroll in its Accelerated Pilot Program, aiming to get commercial pilot licenses. According to the school’s owner Rudi Dekkers, Atta already has a private pilot’s license—though where and how he gained this is unstated—and wants to obtain a commercial license. Alshehhi wants to obtain both licenses. They begin their training in a Cessna 172 with instructor Thierry Leklou. According to the 9/11 Commission, by the end of July both are already taking solo flights. However, in August Leklou complains to Chief Flight Instructor Daniel Pursell that the two are failing to follow instructions and have bad attitudes. Pursell considers expelling them, but, according to Dekkers, after a warning they improve their behavior and continue without further problems. [US Congress, 3/19/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224, 227; St. Petersburg Times, 7/25/2004] Yet Pursell later testifies that the school’s instructors breathed “a collective sigh of relief” when the two left Huffman. [Associated Press, 3/23/2006] Furthermore, reportedly, “Atta and al-Shehhi would rent a plane from Huffman and be gone for days at a time, Pursell said. They could fly to 20 airports across the state and never be noticed.” [St. Petersburg Times, 7/25/2004] Mark Mikarts, another of the school’s instructors, says Atta has “big problems with authority,” and doesn’t take instructions well. [Wall Street Journal, 9/17/2001; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 17 ] Susan Hall, Huffman’s office manager, refers to Atta as “the little terrorist” while he is at the school, because, she later says, “I just didn’t like the aura he gave off.” [Reuters, 3/22/2006] In the middle of their training, in late September, Atta and Alshehhi enroll at another flight school, in nearby Sarasota. However, they are soon asked to leave it, and return to Huffman in October (see Late September-Early October 2000). While Atta and Alshehhi attend Huffman Aviation, another of the alleged hijackers, Ziad Jarrah, is taking lessons at a flight school just down the road from them (see (June 28-December 2000)). Yet no reports describe the three ever meeting up while they are all in Venice. According to official accounts, Atta and Alshehhi complete their schooling at Huffman on December 19, 2000, when they take their commercial pilot license tests. Rudi Dekkers says that after returning to the school to settle their bills, they leave and are never seen there again. [US Congress, 3/19/2002; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 17 ] Yet Daniel Pursell will later allege that early in 2001 the two are still connected with Huffman, being reported to the school for practicing nighttime landings in one of its planes at another Florida airport (see Between January and February 2001).

According to a post-9/11 confession obtained from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), al-Qaeda operative Khallad bin Attash persuades hijacker Khalid Almihdhar to return to Afghanistan to meet with KSM. At the meeting, Almihdhar complains about life in the US but says he is confident he will be able to obtain another visa, as he left the US before his first one expired. He also tells Mohammed about the problems he and Nawaf Alhazmi have had enrolling in language schools and says they believe they were monitored when they flew from Bangkok to the US in January 2000 (see January 15, 2000) (it is not clear who may have monitored them). Supposedly, KSM is angry that Almihdhar left the US without permission and wishes to exclude Almihdhar from the mission, but bin Laden himself intervenes and keeps Almihdhar involved. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 237, 269; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/31/2006, pp. 20-21 ] Doubts have been raised about the reliability of KSM’s confession, as it was obtained using torture (see June 16, 2004). According to author Ron Suskind, at one point interrogators even threaten to hurt KSM’s children, a seven-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl, unless he provides more information. [Suskind, 2006, pp. 230]

Lizsa Lehman [Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune]While attending flight school in Venice, Florida (see July 6-December 19, 2000), Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi regularly visit a couple of local bars. Most nights, after flying classes, they drink beer at the Outlook. They are observed there as being well dressed and well spoken. Atta comes across as cold and unfriendly, and is disapproving of the presence of women servers behind the bar. Bartender Lizsa Lehman will later say that, after the 9/11 attacks, “I remember thinking that [Atta] was capable of everything they had said was done.” In contrast, Alshehhi is “friendly and jovial and… always eager to interact with bartenders and patrons.” Lehman later says, “I, to this day, have trouble seeing [Alshehhi] doing it [i.e., participating in 9/11].” [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2006; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2006] Atta and several friends are also regulars at the 44th Aero Squadron bar. The group drinks Bud Light, talks quietly, and stays sober. The bar’s owner, Ken Schortzmann, says Atta has “a fanny pack with a big roll of cash in it,” and comments, “I never had any problems with them.… They… didn’t drink heavily or flirt with the waitresses, like some of the other flight students.” While he regularly goes to these bars during this period, Atta never visits any of the three mosques in Southwest Florida, and avoids contact with local Muslims. [Newsweek, 9/24/2001; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/28/2001] Interestingly, other witnesses later describe Atta as possibly doing drugs as well. The owner of a unit of apartments where Atta reportedly lived with some other Middle Eastern men in late 2000 (see (Mid-July 2000 - Early January 2001)) says these men smoked a strange tobacco, which smelled like marijuana. [Charlotte Sun, 9/14/2001] Atta may also be a heavy smoker, as he is reported to spend his time “chain smoking,” when later living in Coral Springs. [Sunday Times (London), 2/3/2002]

Steve Kona. [Source: Sarasota Herald Tribune]While attending Huffman Aviation flight school in Venice, Florida, alleged 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi move into a small, furnished two-bedroom house in Nokomis, about ten miles north of Venice, which they rent for $550 per month. Noting that Atta and Alshehhi also drive a ten-year-old car, Steve Kona, who owns the house, later says, “This house is nothing extravagant at all… It’s not like they were living in a $3,000-a-month rental home and driving a Mercedes.” [Wall Street Journal, 9/20/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 9/27/2001] Kona says, “Atta I never met.” But he talks to Alshehhi “two or three times because I’d go to mow the grass. He was very friendly.” The pair refuses Kona’s offer of free cable TV, don’t use the house’s air conditioning, even in the middle of summer, and leave the place in spotless condition. Although they rent the house for as long as six months, Jeff Duignan, who lives next door, later says, “I never saw them, and when you don’t see them you don’t worry about them.” [St. Petersburg Times, 9/14/2001; Miami Herald, 9/15/2001; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/16/2001; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2006] This apparent absence could be explained by the fact that, according to several witnesses, over about this same duration they live in an apartment in Venice (see (Mid-July 2000 - Early January 2001)). Atta and Alshehhi were evicted from their previous address, in Venice (see Early July 2000). When Rudi Dekkers, the owner of Huffman Aviation, testifies before Congress in 2002, he will claim, “After their eviction there was no mention of where they were staying.” [US Congress, 3/19/2002] No explanation is ever given as to why they have two separate residences at the same time. However, a private consumer database will later reveal that Atta had 12 addresses, including two places where he lived and ten safe houses, so the Nokomis address could possibly be one of these safe houses (see Mid-September 2001). Interestingly, another hijacker, Ziad Jarrah, also has a second residence he never stays at while he attends flight school in Venice (see (June 28-December 2000)).

The Sandpiper Apartments. [Source: Patrick Durand / Corbis] (click image to enlarge)While attending Huffman Aviation flight school in Venice, Florida, 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi share a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with four other Middle Eastern flight school students in unit 26 of the Sandpiper Apartments, near the Venice airport. The apartment they are in is rented by the flight school, and then sublet to its students at a profit. After 9/11, Paula Grapentine, who along with her husband manages the apartments, will remember Atta being her former next-door neighbor. She recalls him being “very unfriendly,” and that he “treated women like they were under him.” She also recalls “a lot of visitors” at the apartment. As a consequence of the students’ unruly behavior, the Grapentines will subsequently stop renting to Huffman Aviation. Vicky Kyser, who owns the apartment complex, says the students smoke a strange tobacco, which smells like marijuana. Postal carrier Neil Patton also later recalls Atta and Alshehhi living in the apartment, and says Atta may have gone by the name Youseff. Patton stops delivering mail to them at the apartment on January 18, 2001, which he says suggests they moved out seven to ten days earlier. After 9/11, the Charlotte Sun will obtain a written list of names of individuals the FBI is pursuing: Gamil, Rami, Mukadam, Ibrahim and Mogadem. Patton confirms all these having been used by the students at the apartment. [Charlotte Sun, 9/14/2001; Charlotte Sun, 9/14/2001] No mention is made of this residence in official accounts, such as the 9/11 Commission Report. [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224-227] Over about the same period as they reportedly live in the Sandpiper Apartments, Atta and Alshehhi rent a house in nearby Nokomis, although their next-door neighbor there never sees them at the house (see (Mid-July - December 2000)).

Between July 20 and November 18, 2000, future 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi receives 16 phone calls from someone living overseas named Ashraf Suboh. At the time, Alhazmi is living in San Diego, California, at the house of an FBI informant named Abdussattar Shaikh (see May 10-Mid-December 2000). Alhazmi apparently does not make any important calls using the phone in the house, and these are the only important calls he receives. It is unknown if Suboh is someone’s real name or an alias. The name will be discovered in a raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Pakistan in May 2002. Suboh’s name and address will be discovered as part of a printout of an e-mail dated January 9, 2001. The 9/11 Commission will mention this in its 2004 final report, but it will not mention where Suboh’s address was or any other information about him. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 535] The May 2002 raid is likely the same one where other information about the 9/11 hijackers is found, including passport photographs and other passport pages of hijackers Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Abdulaziz Alomari (see May 16, 2002).

The French intelligence agency, the DGSE, publishes a 13-page classified report entitled “The Networks of Osama bin Laden.” According to a 2007 article, the report describes the “context, the anecdotal details, and all the strategic aspects relative to al-Qaeda” in “black and white” terms. It mentions a payment of $4.5 million from the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) to in Laden. The US will not go after the IIRO even years after 9/11 because of the organization’s close ties to the Saudi government (see October 12, 2001 and August 3, 2006). The report also doubts Osama bin Laden’s purported estrangement from the bin Laden family: “It seems more and more likely that bin Laden has maintained contacts with certain members of his family, although the family, which directs one of the largest groups of public works in the world, has officially renounced him. One of his brothers apparently plays a role as intermediary in its professional contacts or the monitoring of its business.” French officials will later claim they regularly passed on their intelligence on al-Qaeda to the CIA. [Le Monde (Paris), 4/15/2007]

Email Updates

Receive weekly email updates summarizing what contributors have added to the History Commons database

Donate

Developing and maintaining this site is very labor intensive. If you find it useful, please give us a hand and donate what you can.Donate Now

Volunteer

If you would like to help us with this effort, please contact us. We need help with programming (Java, JDO, mysql, and xml), design, networking, and publicity. If you want to contribute information to this site, click the register link at the top of the page, and start contributing.Contact Us